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diff --git a/41705-8.txt b/41705-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index dfae149..0000000 --- a/41705-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10562 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Anima Poetæ, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: Anima Poetæ - -Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge - -Editor: Ernest Hartley Coleridge - -Release Date: December 25, 2012 [EBook #41705] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANIMA POETÆ *** - - - - -Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Carla Foust, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - -Transcriber's note - - -Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printer -errors have been changed and are listed at the end. All other -inconsistencies are as in the original. - -Characters that could not be displayed directly in Latin-1 are -transcribed as follows: - - _ - Italic - ^ - superscript - {_C} - subscript C - [cir] - circle - [py] - pyramid - [rec] - rectangle - [scir] - small circle - [sq] - square - [V] - slant - - - - -ANIMA POETÆ - - FROM THE UNPUBLISHED - NOTE-BOOKS OF - SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE - - - EDITED BY - ERNEST HARTLEY COLERIDGE - - - LONDON - WILLIAM HEINEMANN - MDCCCXCV - - _All rights reserved_ - - _Entered at Stationers' Hall_ - - _Entered at the Library of Congress, Washington_ - - _Copyright_, 1895 - - - - -When shall I find time and ease to reduce my pocket-books and -memorandums to an _Index_ or _Memoriæ Memorandorum_? If--aye! and alas! -if I could see the last sheet of my _Assertio Fidei Christianæ, et -eterni temporizantis_, having previously beheld my elements of -Discourse, Logic, Dialectic, and Noetic, or Canon, Criterion, and -Organon, with the philosophic Glossary--in one printed volume, and the -Exercises in Reasoning as another--if--what then? Why, then I would -publish all that remained unused, Travels and all, under the title of -Excursions Abroad and at Home, what I have seen and what I have thought -with a little of what I have felt, in the words in which I told and -talked them to my pocket-books, the confidants who have _not_ betrayed -me, the friends whose silence was _not_ detraction, and the inmates -before whom I was not ashamed to complain, to yearn, to weep, or even to -pray! To which are added marginal notes from many old books and one or -two new ones, sifted through the Mogul Sieve of Duty towards my -Neighbour--by [Greek: 'Estêse]. - -_21 June, 1823._ - - - - -PREFACE - - -_Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge_, which the -poet's nephew and son-in-law, Henry Nelson Coleridge, published in 1835, -was a popular book from the first, and has won the approval of two -generations of readers. Unlike the _Biographia Literaria_, or the -original and revised versions of _The Friend_, which never had their day -at all, or the _Aids to Reflection_, which passed through many editions, -but now seems to have delivered its message, the _Table Talk_ is still -well known and widely read, and that not only by students of literature. -The task which the editor set himself was a difficult one, but it lay -within the powers of an attentive listener, possessed of a good memory -and those rarer gifts of a refined and scholarly taste, a sound and -luminous common sense. He does not attempt to reproduce Coleridge's -conversation or monologue or impassioned harangue, but he preserves and -notes down the detached fragments of knowledge and wisdom which fell -from time to time from the master's lips. Here are "the balmy sunny -islets of the blest and the intelligible," an unvexed and _harbourous_ -archipelago. Very sparingly, if at all, have those pithy "sentences" and -weighty paragraphs been trimmed or pruned by the pious solicitude of the -memorialist, but it must be borne in mind that the unities are more or -less consciously observed, alike in the matter of the discourse and the -artistic presentation to the reader. There is, in short, not merely a -"mechanic" but an "organic regularity" in the composition of the work as -a whole. A "myriad-minded" sage, who has seen men and cities, who has -read widely and shaped his thoughts in a peculiar mould, is pouring out -his stores of knowledge, the garnered fruit of a life of study and -meditation, for the benefit of an apt learner, a discreet and -appreciative disciple. A day comes when the marvellous lips are -constrained to an endless silence, and it becomes the duty and privilege -of the beloved and honoured pupil to "snatch from forgetfulness" and to -hand down to posterity the great tradition of his master's eloquence. A -labour of love so useful and so fascinating was accomplished by the -gifted editor of the _Table Talk_, and it was accomplished once for all. -The compilation of a new _Table Talk_, if it were possible, would be a -mistake and an impertinence. - -The present collection of hitherto unpublished aphorisms, reflections, -confessions and soliloquies, which for want of a better name I have -entitled _Anima Poetæ_, does not in any way challenge comparison with -the _Table Talk_. It is, indeed, essentially different, not only in the -sources from which it has been compiled but in constitution and in aim. - -"Since I left you," writes Coleridge in a letter to Wordsworth of May -12, 1812, "my pocket-books have been my sole confidants." Doubtless, in -earlier and happier days, he had been eager not merely to record but to -communicate to the few who would listen or might understand the -ceaseless and curious workings of his ever-shaping imagination, but from -youth to age note-books and pocket-books were his silent confidants, his -"never-failing friends" by night and day. - -More than fifty of these remarkable documents are extant. The earliest -of the series, which dates from 1795 and which is known as the "Gutch -Memorandum Book," was purchased in 1868 by the trustees of the British -Museum, and is now exhibited in the King's Library. It consists, for the -most part, of fragments of prose and verse thrown off at the moment, -and stored up for future use in poem or lecture or sermon. A few of -these fragments were printed in the _Literary Remains_ (4 vols. -1836-39), and others are to be found (pp. 103, 5, 6, 9 _et passim_) in -Herr Brandl's _Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the English Romantic School_. -The poetical fragments are printed _in extenso_ in Coleridge's _Poetical -Works_ (Macmillan, 1893), pp. 453-58. A few specimens of the prose -fragments have been included in the first chapter of this work. One of -the latest note-books, an unfinished folio, contains the Autobiographic -Note of 1832, portions of which were printed in Gillman's _Life of -Coleridge_, pp. 9-33, and a mass of unpublished matter, consisting -mainly of religious exercises and biblical criticism. - -Of the intervening collection of pocket-books, note-books, copy-books, -of all shapes, sizes and bindings, a detailed description would be -tedious and out of place. Their contents may be roughly divided into -diaries of tours in Germany, the Lake District, Scotland, Sicily and -Italy; notes for projected and accomplished works, rough drafts of -poems, schemes of metre and metrical experiments; notes for lectures on -Shakspere and other dramatists; quotations from books of travel, from -Greek, Latin, German and Italian classics, with and without critical -comments; innumerable fragments of metaphysical and theological -speculation; and commingled with this unassorted medley of facts and -thoughts and fancies, an occasional and intermitted record of personal -feeling, of love and friendship, of disappointment and regret, of -penitence and resolve, of faith and hope in the Unseen. - -Hitherto, but little use has been made of this life-long accumulation of -literary material. A few specimens, "Curiosities of Literature" they -might have been called, were contributed by Coleridge himself to -Southey's _Omniana_ of 1812, and a further selection of some fifty -fragments, gleaned from note-books 21-1/2 and 22, and from a third -unnumbered MS. book now in my possession, were printed by H. N. -Coleridge in the first volume of the _Literary Remains_ under the -heading _Omniana 1809-1816_. The _Omniana_ of 1812 were, in many -instances, re-written by Coleridge before they were included in -Southey's volumes, and in the later issue, here and there, the editor -has given shape and articulation to an unfinished or half-formed -sentence. The earlier and later _Omniana_, together with the fragments -which were published by Allsop in his _Letters, Conversations and -Recollections of S. T. Coleridge_, in 1836, were included by the late -Thomas Ashe in his reprint of the _Table Talk_, Bell & Co., 1884. - -Some fourteen or fifteen notes of singular interest and beauty, which -belong to the years 1804, 1812, 1826, 1829, etc., were printed by James -Gillman in his unfinished "Life of Coleridge," and it is evident that he -contemplated a more extended use of the note-books in the construction -of his second volume, or, possibly, the publication of a supplementary -volume of notes or _Omniana_. Transcripts which were made for this -purpose are extant, and have been placed at my disposal by the kindness -of Mrs. Henry Watson, who inherited them from her grandmother, Mrs. -Gillman. - -I may add that a few quotations from diaries of tours in the Lake -Country and on the Continent are to be found in the foot-notes appended -to the two volumes of _Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge_ which were -issued in the spring of the present year. - -To publish the note-books _in extenso_ would be impracticable, if even -after the lapse of sixty years since the death of the writer it were -permissible. They are private memoranda-books, and rightly and properly -have been regarded as a sacred trust by their several custodians. But it -is none the less certain that in disburthening himself of the ideas and -imaginations which pressed upon his consciousness, in committing them to -writing and carefully preserving them through all his wanderings, -Coleridge had no mind that they should perish utterly. The invisible -pageantry of thought and passion which for ever floated into his -spiritual ken, the perpetual hope, the half-belief that the veil of the -senses would be rent in twain, and that he and not another would be the -first to lay bare the mysteries of being, and to solve the problem of -the ages--of these was the breath of his soul. It was his fate to -wrestle from night to morn with the Angel of the Vision, and of that -unequal combat he has left, by way of warning or encouragement, a broken -but an inspired and inspiring record. "Hints and first thoughts" he bade -us regard the contents of his memorandum-books--"_cogitabilia_ rather -than _cogitata_ a me, not fixed opinions," and yet acts of obedience to -the apostolic command of "Try all things: hold fast that which is -good"--say, rather, acts of obedience to the compulsion of his own -genius to "take a pen and write in a book all the words of the vision." - -The aim of the present work, however imperfectly accomplished, has been -to present in a compendious shape a collection of unpublished aphorisms -and sentences, and at the same time to enable the reader to form some -estimate of those strange self-communings to which Coleridge devoted so -much of his intellectual energies, and by means of which he hoped to -pass through the mists and shadows of words and thoughts to a steadier -contemplation, to the apprehension if not the comprehension of the -mysteries of Truth and Being. - -The various excerpts which I have selected for publication are arranged, -as far as possible, in chronological order. They begin with the -beginning of Coleridge's literary career, and are carried down to the -summer of 1828, when he accompanied Wordsworth and his daughter Dora on -a six months' tour on the Continent. The series of note-books which -belong to the remaining years of his life (1828-1834) were devoted for -the most part to a commentary on the Old and New Testament, to -theological controversy, and to metaphysical disquisition. Whatever -interest they may have possessed, or still possess, appeals to the -student, not to the general reader. With his inveterate love of humorous -or facetious titles, Coleridge was pleased to designate these serious -and abstruse dissertations as "The Flycatchers." - -My especial thanks are due to Amy, Lady Coleridge, who, in accordance -with the known wishes of the late Lord Coleridge, has afforded me every -facility for collating my own transcripts of the note-books, and those -which were made by my father and other members of my family, with the -original MSS. now in her possession. - -I have to also thank Miss Edith Coleridge for valuable assistance in the -preparation of the present work for the press. - -The death of my friend, Mr. James Dykes Campbell, has deprived me of aid -which he alone could give. - -It was due to his suggestion and encouragement that I began to compile -these pages, and only a few days before his death he promised me (it was -all he could undertake) to "run through the proofs with my pencil in my -hand." He has passed away _multis flebilis_, but he lived to accomplish -his own work both as critic and biographer, and to leave to all who -follow in his footsteps a type and example of honest workmanship and of -literary excellence. - - ERNEST HARTLEY COLERIDGE. - - - - -ANIMA POETÆ - - - - -CHAPTER I - -_1797-1801_ - - "O Youth! for years so many and sweet, - 'Tis known, that Thou and I were one." - - S. T. C. - - -[Sidenote: PAST AND PRESENT] - -"We should judge of absent things by the absent. Objects which are -present are apt to produce perceptions too strong to be impartially -compared with those recalled only by the memory." SIR J. STEWART. - -True! and O how often the very opposite is true likewise, namely, that -the objects of memory are, often, so dear and vivid, that present things -are injured by being compared with them, vivid from dearness! - - -[Sidenote: LOVE] - -Love, a myrtle wand, is transformed by the Aaron touch of jealousy into -a serpent so vast as to swallow up every other stinging woe, and makes -us mourn the exchange. - - -Love that soothes misfortune and buoys up to virtue--the pillow of -sorrows, the wings of virtue. - - -Disappointed love not uncommonly causes misogyny, even as extreme thirst -is supposed to be the cause of hydrophobia. - - -Love transforms the soul into a conformity with the object loved. - - -[Sidenote: DUTY AND EXPERIENCE] - -From the narrow path of virtue Pleasure leads us to more flowery fields, -and there Pain meets and chides our wandering. Of how many pleasures, of -what lasting happiness, is Pain the parent and Woe the womb! - - -Real pain can alone cure us of imaginary ills. We feel a thousand -miseries till we are lucky enough to feel misery. - - -Misfortunes prepare the heart for the enjoyment of happiness in a better -state. The life of a religious benevolent man is an April day. His pains -and sorrows [what are they but] the fertilising rain? The sunshine -blends with every shower, and look! how full and lovely it lies on -yonder hill! - - -Our quaint metaphysical opinions, in an hour of anguish, are like -playthings by the bedside of a child deadly sick. - - -Human happiness, like the aloe, is a flower of slow growth. - - -What we must do let us love to do. It is a noble chymistry that turns -necessity into pleasure. - - -[Sidenote: INFANCY AND INFANTS] - -1. The first smile--what kind of _reason_ it displays. The first smile -after sickness. - -2. Asleep with the polyanthus held fast in its hand, its bells dropping -over the rosy face. - -3. Stretching after the stars. - -4. Seen asleep by the light of glowworms. - -5. Sports of infants; their excessive activity, the means being the end. -Nature, how lovely a school-mistress!... Children at houses of industry. - -6. Infant beholding its new-born sister. - -7. Kissing itself in the looking-glass. - -8. The Lapland infant seeing the sun. - -9. An infant's prayer on its mother's lap. Mother directing a baby's -hand. (Hartley's "love to Papa," scrawls pothooks and reads what he -meant by them.) - -10. The infants of kings and nobles. ("Princess unkissed and foully -husbanded!") - -11. The souls of infants, a vision (_vide Swedenborg_). - -12. Some tales of an infant. - -13. [Greek: Storgê]. The absurdity of the Darwinian system (instanced -by) birds and alligators. - -14. The wisdom and graciousness of God in the infancy of the human -species--its beauty, long continuance, etc. (Children in the wind--hair -floating, tossing, a miniature of the agitated trees below which they -played. The elder whirling for joy the one in petticoats, a fat baby -eddying half-willingly, half by the force of the gust, driven backward, -struggling forward--both drunk with the pleasure, both shouting their -hymn of joy.) [_Letters of S. T. C._, 1895, i. 408.] - -15. Poor William seeking his mother, in love with her picture, and -having that union of beauty and filial affection that the Virgin Mary -may be supposed to give. - - -[Sidenote: POETRY] - -Poetry, like schoolboys, by too frequent and severe correction, may be -cowed into dullness! - - -Peculiar, not far-fetched; natural, but not obvious; delicate, not -affected; dignified, not swelling; fiery, but not mad; rich in imagery, -but not loaded with it--in short, a union of harmony and good sense, of -perspicuity and conciseness. Thought is the body of such an ode, -enthusiasm the soul, and imagery the drapery. - - -Dr. Darwin's poetry is nothing but a succession of landscapes or -paintings. It arrests the attention too often, and so prevents the -rapidity necessary to pathos. - - -The elder languages were fitter for poetry because they expressed only -prominent ideas with clearness, the others but darkly.... Poetry gives -most pleasure when only generally and not perfectly understood. It was -so by me with Gray's "Bard" and Collins' Odes. The "Bard" once -intoxicated me, and now I read it without pleasure. From this cause it -is that what I call metaphysical poetry gives me so much delight. - -[Compare _Lecture_ vi. 1811-12, Bell & Co., p. 70; and _Table Talk_, -Oct. 23, 1833, Bell & Co., p. 264.] - - -[Sidenote: COMPARISONS AND CONTRASTS] - -Poetry which excites us to artificial feelings makes us callous to real -ones. - - -The whale is followed by waves. I would glide down the rivulet of quiet -life, a trout. - - -Australis [Southey] may be compared to an ostrich. He cannot fly, but he -has such other qualities that he needs it not. - - -Mackintosh _intertrudes_ not introduces his beauties. - - -Snails of intellect who see only by their feelers. - - -Pygmy minds, measuring others by their own standard, cry What a -_monster_, when they view a man! - - -Our constitution is to some like cheese--the rotten parts they like the -best. - - -Her eyes sparkled as if they had been cut out of a diamond-quarry in -some Golconda of Fairyland, and cast such meaning glances as would have -vitrified the flint in a murderer's blunderbuss. - - -[A task] as difficult as to separate two dew-drops blended together on a -bosom of a new-blown rose. - - -I discovered unprovoked malice in his hard heart, like a huge toad in -the centre of a marble rock. - - -Men anxious for this world are like owls that wake all night to catch -mice. - - -At Genoa the word _Liberty_ is engraved on the chains of the galley -slaves and the doors of prisons. - - -Gratitude, worse than witchcraft, conjures up the pale, meagre ghosts of -dead forgotten kindnesses to haunt and trouble [his memory]. - - -The sot, rolling on his sofa, stretching and yawning, exclaimed, -"_Utinam hoc esset laborare._" - - -Truth still more than Justice [is] blind, and needs Wisdom for her -guide. - - -[Sidenote: OF THINGS VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE] - -[A Proof of] the severity of the winter--the kingfisher [by] its slow, -short flight permitting you to observe all its colours, almost as if it -had been a flower. - - -Little daisy--very late Spring, March. Quid si vivat? Do all things in -faith. _Never pluck a flower again!_ Mem. - - -[Sidenote: May 20, 1799] - -The nightingales in a cluster or little wood of blossomed trees, and a -bat wheeling incessantly round and round! The noise of the frogs was -not unpleasant, like the humming of spinning wheels in a large -manufactory--now and then a distinct sound, sometimes like a duck, and, -sometimes, like the shrill notes of sea-fowl. - -[This note was written one day later than S. T. C.'s last letter from -Germany, May 19, 1799.] - - -O Heavens! when I think how perishable things, how imperishable thoughts -seem to be! For what is forgetfulness? Renew the state of affection or -bodily feeling [so as to be the] same or similar, sometimes dimly -similar, and, instantly, the trains of forgotten thoughts rise from -their living catacombs! - - -[Sidenote:[Sockburn] October 1799] - -Few moments in life are so interesting as those of our affectionate -reception from a stranger who is the dear friend of your dear friend! -How often you have been the subject of conversation, and how -affectionately! - -[The note commemorates his first introduction to Mary and Sarah -Hutchinson.] - - -[Sidenote: Friday evening, Nov, 27, 1799] - -The immoveableness of all things through which so many men were -moving--a harsh contrast compared with the universal motion, the -harmonious system of motions in the country, and everywhere in Nature. -In the dim light London appeared to be a huge place of sepulchres -through which hosts of spirits were gliding. - - -Ridicule the rage for quotations by quoting from "My Baby's -Handkerchief." Analyse the causes that the ludicrous weakens memory, and -laughter, mechanically, makes it difficult to remember a good story. - - -Sara sent twice for the measure of George's[A] neck. He wondered that -Sara should be such a fool, as she might have measured William's or -Coleridge's--as "all poets' throttles were of one size." - - -Hazlitt, the painter, told me that a picture never looked so well as -when the pallet was by the side of it. Association, with the glow of -production. - - -Mr. J. Cairns, in the _Gentleman's Diary_ for 1800, supposes that the -Nazarites, who, under the law of Moses, had their heads [shaved] must -have used some sort of wigs! - - -Slanting pillars of misty light moved along under the sun hid by -clouds. - - -Leaves of trees upturned by the stirring wind in twilight--an image of -paleness, wan affright. - - -A child scolding a flower in the words in which he had been himself -scolded and whipped, is poetry--passion past with pleasure. - - -[Sidenote: July 20, 1800] - -Poor fellow at a distance--idle? in this hay-time when wages are so -high? [We] come near [and] then [see that he is] pale, can scarce speak -or throw out his fishing rod. - -[This incident is fully described by Wordsworth in the last of the four -poems on "Naming of Places." - ---_Poetical Works of W. Wordsworth_, 1889, p. 144.] - - -[Sidenote: September 1, [1800]] - -The beards of thistle and dandelions flying about the lonely mountains -like life--and I saw them through the trees skimming the lake like -swallows. - - ["And, in our vacant mood, - Not seldom did we stop to watch some tuft - Of dandelion seed or thistle's beard, - That skimmed the surface of the dead calm lake, - Suddenly halting now--a lifeless stand! - And starting off again with freak as sudden; - In all its sportive wanderings, all the while, - Making report of an invisible breeze - That was its wings, its chariot and its horse, - Its playmate, rather say, its moving soul." - - _Ibid._ p. 143.] - - -Luther--a hero, fettered, indeed, with prejudices--but with those very -fetters he would knock out the brains of a modern _Fort Esprit_. - - -_Comment._ Frightening by his prejudices, as a spirit does by clanking -his chains. - -Not only words, as far as relates to speaking, but the knowledge of -words as distinct component parts, which we learn by learning to -read--what an immense effect it must have on our reasoning faculties! -Logical in opposition to real. - - -[Sidenote: 1797-1801] - -Children, in making new words, always do it analogously. Explain this. - - -Hot-headed men confuse, your cool-headed gentry jumble. The man of warm -feelings only produces order and true connection. In what a jumble M. -and H. write, every third paragraph beginning with "Let us now return," -or "We come now to the consideration of such a thing"--that is, what _I -said_ I _would_ come to in the contents prefixed to the chapter. - - -[Sidenote: Dec. 19, 1800] - -The thin scattered rain-clouds were scudding along the sky; above them, -with a visible interspace, the crescent moon hung, and partook not of -the motion; her own hazy light filled up the concave, as if it had been -painted and the colours had run. - - -"He to whom all things are one, who draweth all things to one, and seeth -all things in one, may enjoy true peace of mind and rest of -spirit."--JEREMY TAYLOR'S _Via Pacis_. - - -To each reproach that thunders from without may remorse groan an echo. - - -A prison without ransom, anguish without patience, a sick bed in the -house of contempt. - - -To _think_ of a thing is different from to _perceive_ it, as "to walk" -is from to "feel the ground under you;" perhaps in the same way -too--namely, a succession of perceptions accompanied by a sense of -_nisus_ and purpose. - - -Space, is it merely another word for the perception of a capability of -additional magnitude, or does this very perception presuppose the idea -of space? The latter is Kant's opinion. - - -A babe who had never known greater cruelty than that of being snatched -away by its mother for half a moment from the breast in order to be -kissed. - - -To attempt to subordinate the idea of time to that of likeness. - - -Every man asks _how_? This power to instruct is the true substratum of -philosophy. - - -Godwin's philosophy is contained in these words: _Rationem defectus esse -defectum rationis_.--HOBBES. - - -Hartley just able to speak a few words, making a fire-place of stones, -with stones for fire--four stones for the fire-place, two for the -fire--seems to illustrate a theory of language, the use of arbitrary -symbols in imagination. Hartley walked remarkably soon and, therefore, -learnt to talk remarkably late. - - -Anti-optimism! Praised be our Maker, and to the honour of human nature -is it, that we may truly call this an inhuman opinion. Man strives after -good. - - -Materialists unwilling to admit the mysterious element of our nature -make it all mysterious--nothing mysterious in nerves, eyes, &c., but -that nerves think, etc.! Stir up the sediment into the transparent -water, and so make all opaque. - - -[Sidenote: 1797-1801] - -As we recede from anthropomorphism we must go either to the Trinity or -Pantheism. The Fathers who were Unitarians were anthropomorphites. - - -[Sidenote: EGOTISM January 1801] - -Empirics are boastful and egotists because they introduce real or -apparent novelty, which excites great opposition, [while] personal -opposition creates re-action (which is of course a consciousness of -power) associated with the person re-acting. Paracelsus was a boaster, -it is true; so were the French Jacobins, and Wolff, though not a -boaster, was persecuted into a habit of egotism in his philosophical -writings; so Dr. John Brown, and Milton in his prose works; and those, -in similar circumstances, who, from prudence, abstain from egotism in -their writings are still egotists among their friends. It would be -unnatural effort not to be so, and egotism in such cases is by no means -offensive to a kind and discerning man. - -Some flatter themselves that they abhor egotism, and do not suffer it to -appear _primâ facie_, either in their writings or conversation, however -much and however personally they or their opinions have been opposed. -What now? Observe, watch those men; their habits of feeling and thinking -are made up of _contempt_, which is the concentrated vinegar of -egotism--it is _lætitia mixta cum odio_, a notion of the weakness of -another conjoined with a notion of our own comparative strength, though -that weakness is still strong enough to be troublesome to us, though not -formidable. - - "--and the deep power of Joy - We see into the Life of Things." - - -[Sidenote: THE EGO] - -By deep feeling we make our _ideas dim_, and this is what we mean by our -life, ourselves. I think of the wall--it is before me a distinct image. -Here I necessarily think of the _idea_ and the thinking _I_ as two -distinct and opposite things. Now let me think of _myself_, of the -thinking being. The idea becomes dim, whatever it be--so dim that I know -not what it is; but the feeling is deep and steady, and this I call -_I_--identifying the percipient and the perceived. - - "O Thou! whose fancies from afar are brought." - - -[Sidenote: March 17, 1801, Tuesday] - -[Sidenote: 1797-1801] - -Hartley, looking out of my study window, fixed his eyes steadily and for -some time on the opposite prospect and said, "Will yon mountains -_always_ be?" I shewed him the whole magnificent prospect in a -looking-glass, and held it up, so that the whole was like a canopy or -ceiling over his head, and he struggled to express himself concerning -the difference between the thing and the image almost with convulsive -effort. I never before saw such an abstract of _thinking_ as a pure act -and energy--of thinking as distinguished from thought. - - -[Sidenote: GIORDANO BRUNO] - -Monday, April 1801, and Tuesday, read two works of Giordano Bruno, with -one title-page: _Jordani Bruni Nolani de Monade, Numero et Figurâ liber -consequens. Quinque de Minimo, Magno et Mensurâ. Item. De -Innumerabilibus Immenso, et Infigurabili seu de Universo et Mundis libri -octo. Francofurti, Apud Joan. Wechelum et Petrum Fischerum consortes_, -1591. - -Then follows the dedication, then the index of contents of the whole -volume, at the end of which index is a Latin ode, conceived with great -dignity and grandeur of thought. Then the work _De Monade, Numero et -Figurâ, secretioris nempe Physicæ, Mathematicæ, et Metaphysicæ elementa_ -commences, which, as well as the eight books _De Innumerabili_, &c., is -a poem in Latin hexameters, divided (each book) into chapters, and to -each chapter is affixed a prose commentary. If the five books _de -Minimo_, &c., to which this book is consequent are of the same -character, I lost nothing in not having it. As to the work _De Monade_, -it was far too numerical, lineal and Pythagorean for my comprehension. -It read very much like Thomas Taylor and Proclus, &c. I by no means -think it certain that there is no meaning in these works. Nor do I -presume even to suppose that the meaning is of no value (till I -understand a man's ignorance I presume myself ignorant of his -understanding), but it is for others, at present, not for me. Sir P. -Sidney and Fulk Greville shut the doors at their philosophical -conferences with Bruno. If his conversation resembled this book, I -should have thought he would have talked with a trumpet. - -The poems and commentaries, in the _De Immenso et Innumerabili_ are of a -different character. The commentary is a very sublime enunciation of the -dignity of the human soul, according to the principles of Plato. - -[Here follows the passage, "_Anima Sapiens ----ubique totus_," quoted in -_The Friend_ (_Coleridge's Works_, ii. 109), together with a brief -_résumé_ of Bruno's other works. See, too, _Biographia Literaria_, -chapter ix. (_Coleridge's Works_, iii. 249).] - - -[Sidenote: OBSERVATIONS AND REFLECTIONS] - -The spring with the little tiny cone of loose sand ever rising and -sinking at the bottom, but its surface without a wrinkle. - - -[Sidenote: Monday, September 14, 1801] - -Northern lights remarkably fine--chiefly a purple-blue--in shooting -pyramids, moved from over Bassenthwaite behind Skiddaw. Derwent's -birthday, one year old. - - -[Sidenote: September 15, 1801] - -Observed the great half moon setting behind the mountain ridge, and -watched the shapes its various segments presented as it slowly -sunk--first the foot of a boot, all but the heel--then a little pyramid -[py]--then a star of the first magnitude--indeed, it was not -distinguishable from the evening star at its largest--then rapidly a -smaller, a small, a very small star--and, as it diminished in size, so -it grew paler in tint. And now where is it? Unseen--but a little fleecy -cloud hangs above the mountain ridge, and is rich in amber light. - - -I do not wish you to act from those truths. No! still and always act -from your feelings; but only meditate often on these truths, that -sometime or other they may become your feelings. - - -The state should be to the religions under its protection as a -well-drawn picture, equally eyeing all in the room. - - -Quære, whether or no too great definiteness of terms in any language may -not consume too much of the vital and idea-creating force in distinct, -clear, full-made images, and so prevent originality. For original might -be distinguished from positive thought. - - -The thing that causes _in_stability in a particular state, of itself -causes stability. For instance, wet soap slips off the ledge--detain it -till it dries a little, and it _sticks_. - - -Is there anything in the idea that citizens are fonder of good eating -and rustics of strong drink--the one from the rarity of all such things, -the other from the uniformity of his life? - - -[Sidenote: October 19, 1801] - -[Sidenote: 1797-1801] - -On the Greta, over the bridge by Mr. Edmundson's father-in-law, the -ashes--their leaves of that light yellow which autumn gives them, cast a -reflection on the river like a painter's sunshine. - - -[Sidenote: October 20, 1801] - -My birthday. The snow fell on Skiddaw and Grysdale Pike for the first -time. - -[A life-long mistake. He was born October 21, 1772.] - - -[Sidenote: Tuesday evening, 1/2 past 6, October 22, 1801] - -All the mountains black and tremendously obscure, except Swinside. At -this time I saw, one after the other, nearly in the same place, two -perfect moon-rainbows, the one foot in the field below my garden, the -other in the field nearest but two to the church. It was -grey-moonlight-mist-colour. Friday morning, Mary Hutchinson arrives. - - -The art in a great man, and of evidently superior faculties, to be often -_obliged_ to people, often his inferiors--in this way the enthusiasm of -affection may be excited. Pity where we can help and our help is -accepted with gratitude, conjoined with admiration, breeds an -enthusiastic affection. The same pity conjoined with admiration, where -neither our help is accepted nor efficient, breeds dyspathy and fear. - - -_Nota bene_ to make a detailed comparison, in the manner of Jeremy -Taylor, between the searching for the first cause of a thing and the -seeking the fountains of the Nile--so many streams, each with its -particular fountain--and, at last, it all comes to a name! - - -The soul a mummy embalmed by Hope in the catacombs. - - -To write a _series_ of love poems truly Sapphic, save that they shall -have a large interfusion of moral sentiment and calm imagery--love in -all the moods of mind, philosophic, fantastic--in moods of high -enthusiasm, of simple feeling, of mysticism, of religion--comprise in it -all the practice and all the philosophy of love! - - -[Greek: Ho myrionous]--hyperbole from Naucratius' panegyric of Theodoras -Chersites. Shakspere, _item_, [Greek: ho pollostos kai polyeidês tê -poikilostrophô sophia. Ho megalophrônotatos tês alêtheias kêryx.]--LORD -BACON. - -[Compare _Biographia Literaria_, cap. xv., "our myriad-minded Shakspere" -and _footnote_. [Greek: Anêr myrionous] a phrase which I have borrowed -from a Greek monk, who applies it to a Patriarch of Constantinople. I -might have said that I have reclaimed rather than borrowed it; for it -seems to belong to Shakspere, _de jure singulari, et ex privilegio -naturæ. Coleridge's Works_, iii. 375.] - -FOOTNOTES: - -[Footnote A: Presumably George Dyer.] - - - - -CHAPTER II - -_1802-1803_ - - - "In a half sleep, he dreams of better worlds, - And dreaming hears thee still, O singing lark, - That singest like an angel in the clouds!" - - S. T .C. - - -[Sidenote: THOUGHTS AND FANCIES] - -No one can leap over his own shadow, but poets leap over death. - - -The old world begins a new year. That is _ours_, but this is from God. - - -We may think of time as threefold. Slowly comes the Future, swift the -Present passes by, but the Past is unmoveable. No impatience will -quicken the loiterer, no terror, no delight rein in the flyer, and no -regret set in motion the stationary. Wouldst be happy, take the delayer -for thy counsellor; do not choose the flyer for thy friend, nor the -ever-remainer for thine enemy. - - -[Sidenote: LIMBO] - -Vastum, incultum, solitudo mera, et incrinitissima nuditas. - -[_Crinitus_, covered with hair, is to be found in Cicero, _nuditas_ in -Quintilian, but _incrinitissima_ is, probably, Coleridgian Latinity.] - - -[An old man gloating over his past vices may be compared to the] devil -at the very end of hell, warming himself at the reflection of the fire -in the ice. - - -Dimness of vision, mist, &c., magnify the powers of sight, numbness adds -to those of touch. A numb limb seems twice its real size. - - -Take away from sounds the sense of outness, and what a horrible disease -would every minute become! A drive over a pavement would be exquisite -torture. What, then, is sympathy if the feelings be not disclosed? An -inward reverberation of the stifled cry of distress. - - -Metaphysics make all one's thoughts equally corrosive on the body, by -inducing a habit of making momently and common thought the subject of -uncommon interest and intellectual energy. - - -A kind-hearted man who is obliged to give a refusal or the like which -will inflict great pain, finds a relief in doing it roughly and -fiercely. Explain this and use it in Christabel. - - -The unspeakable comfort to a good man's mind, nay, even to a criminal, -to be _understood_--to have some one that understands one--and who does -not feel that, on earth, no one does? The hope of this, always more or -less disappointed, gives the passion to friendship. - - -[Sidenote: October,1802] - -Hartley, at Mr. Clarkson's, sent for a candle. The _seems_ made him -miserable. "What do you mean, my love?" "The seems, the seems. What -seems to be and is not, men and faces, and I do not [know] what, ugly, -and sometimes pretty, and these turn ugly, and they seem when my eyes -are open and worse when they are shut--and the candle cures the -_seems_." - - -Great injury has resulted from the supposed incompatibility of one -talent with another, judgment with imagination and taste, good sense -with strong feeling, &c. If it be false, as assuredly it is, the opinion -has deprived us of a test which every man might apply. [Hence] Locke's -opinions of Blackmore, Hume's of Milton and Shakspere. - - -[Sidenote: October 25, 1802] - -I began to look through Swift's works. First volume, containing "Tale of -a Tub," wanting. Second volume--the sermon on the Trinity, rank -Socinianism, _purus putus Socinianism_, while the author rails against -the Socinians for monsters. - - -The first sight of green fields with the numberless nodding gold cups, -and the winding river with alders on its banks, affected me, coming out -of a city confinement, with the sweetness and power of a sudden strain -of music. - - -Mem. to end my preface with "in short, speaking to the poets of the age, -'_Primus vestrûm non sum, neque imus_.' I am none of the best, I am none -of the meanest of you."--BURTON. - - -"Et pour moi, le bonheur n'a commencé que lorsque je l'ai eu perdu. Je -mettrais volontiers sur la porte du Paradis le vers que le Dante a mis -sur celle de l'Enfer. - -'Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch' entrate.'" - - -Were I Achilles, I would have had my leg cut off, and have got rid of my -vulnerable heel. - - -In natural objects we feel ourselves, or think of ourselves, only by -_likenesses_--among men, too often by _differences_. Hence the soothing, -love-kindling effect of rural nature--the bad passions of human -societies. And why is difference linked with hatred? - - -[Sidenote: TRANSCRIPTS FROM MY VELVET-PAPER POCKET-BOOKS] - -Regular post--its influence on the general literature of the country; -turns two-thirds of the nation into writers. - - -Socinianism, moonlight; methodism, a stove. O for some sun to unite heat -and light! - - -[Sidenote: Nov. 25, 1802] - -I intend to examine minutely the nature, cause, birth and growth of the -verbal imagination, in the possession of which Barrow excels almost -every other writer of prose. - - -[Sidenote: Sunday, December 19] - -Remember the pear trees in the lovely vale of Teme. Every season Nature -converts me from some unloving heresy, and will make a Catholic of me at -last. - - -A fine and apposite quotation, or a good story, so far from promoting, -are wont to _damp_ the easy commerce of sensible chit-chat. - - -We imagine ourselves discoverers, and that we have struck a light, when, -in reality, at most, we have but snuffed a candle. - - -A thief in the candle, consuming in a blaze the tallow belonging to the -wick which has sunk out of sight, is an apt simile for a plagiarist from -a dead author. - - -An author with a new play which has been hissed off the stage is not -unlike a boy who has launched on a pond a ship of his own making, and -tries to prove to his schoolfellows that it _ought_ to have sailed. - - -Repose after agitation is like the pool under a waterfall, which the -waterfall has made. - - -Something inherently mean in action! Even the creation of the universe -disturbs my idea of the Almighty's greatness--would do so but that I -perceive that thought with Him creates. - - -The great federal republic of the universe. - - -T. Wedgwood's objection to my "Things and Thoughts," because "thought -always implies an act or _nisus_ of mind" is not well founded. A thought -and thoughts are quite different words from Thought, as a fancy from -Fancy, a work from Work, a life from Life, a force and forces from -Force, a feeling, a writing [from Feelings, Writings.] - - -[Sidenote: May 10, 1803] - -To _fall_ asleep. Is not a real _event_ in the body well represented by -this phrase? Is it in _excess_ when on first _dropping_ asleep we -_fall_ down precipices, or sink down, all things sinking beneath us, or -drop down? Is there not a disease from deficiency of this critical -sensation when people imagine that they have been awake all night, and -actually lie dreaming, expecting and wishing for the critical sensation? - -[Compare the phrase, "precipices of distempered sleep," in the sonnet, -"No more my visionary soul shall dwell," attributed by Southey to -Favell.--_Life and Corresp._ of R. SOUTHEY, i. 224.] - - -[Sidenote: A TREACHEROUS KNAVE] - -[He] drew out the secrets from men's hearts as the Egyptian enchanters -by particular strains of music draw out serpents from their -lurking-places. - - -[Sidenote: COUNTRY AND TOWN] - -The rocks and stones put on a vital resemblance and life itself seemed, -thereby, to forego its restlessness, to anticipate in its own nature an -infinite repose, and to become, as it were, compatible with -immoveability. - - -Bright reflections, in the canal, of the blue and green vitriol bottles -in the druggists' shops in London. - - -A curious, and more than curious, fact, that when the country does not -benefit, it depraves. Hence the violent, vindictive passions and the -outrageous and dark and wild cruelties of very many country folk. [On -the other hand] the continual sight of human faces and human houses, as -in China, emasculates [and degrades.] - - -[Sidenote: Monday night, June 8, 1803] - -"He who cannot wait for his reward has, in reality, not earned it." -These words I uttered in a dream, in which a lecture I was giving--a -very profound one, as I thought--was not listened to, but I was quizzed. - - -[Sidenote: Tuesday night, July 19, 1803] - -Intensely hot day; left off a waistcoat and for yarn wore silk -stockings. Before nine o'clock, had unpleasant chillness; heard a noise -which I thought Derwent's in sleep, listened, and found it was a calf -bellowing. Instantly came on my mind that night I slept out at Ottery, -and the calf in the field across the river whose lowing so deeply -impressed me. Chill + child and calf-lowing--probably the Rivers Greta -and Otter. [_Letters of S.T.C._, 1895, i. 14, _note_.] - - -[Sidenote: October, 1803] - -A smile, as foreign or alien to, as detached from the gloom of the -countenance, as I have seen a small spot of light travel slowly and -sadly along the mountain's breast, when all beside has been dark with -the storm. - - -[Sidenote: A PRINCIPLE OF CRITICISM.] - -Never to lose an opportunity of reasoning against the head-dimming, -heart-damping principle of judging a work by its defects, not its -beauties. Every work must have the former--we know it _a priori_--but -every work has not the latter, and he, therefore, who discovers them, -tells you something that you could not with certainty, or even with -probability, have anticipated. - - -[Sidenote: WORDSWORTH AND THE PRELUDE] - -I am sincerely glad that he has bidden farewell to all small poems, and -is devoting himself to his great work, grandly imprisoning, while it -deifies, his attention and feelings within the sacred circle and -temple-walls of great objects and elevated conceptions. In those little -poems, his own corrections coming of necessity so often--at the end of -every fourteen or twenty lines, or whatever the poem might chance to -be--wore him out; difference of opinion with his best friends irritated -him, and he wrote, at times, too much with a sectarian spirit, in a sort -of bravado. But now he is at the helm of a noble bark; now he sails -right onward; it is all open ocean and a steady breeze, and he drives -before it, unfretted by short tacks, reefing and unreefing the sails, -hauling and disentangling the ropes. His only disease is the having been -out of his element; his return to it is food to famine; it is both the -specific remedy and the condition of health. - - -[Sidenote: THE INCOMMUNICABLE] - -Without drawing, I feel myself but half invested with language. Music, -too, is wanting to me. But yet, though one should unite poetry, -draftsman's skill, and music, the greater and, perhaps, nobler, -certainly _all_ the subtler, parts of one's nature must be _solitary_. -Man exists herein to himself and to God alone--yea! in how much only to -God! how much lies _below_ his own consciousness! - - -The tree or sea-weed like appearance of the side of the mountain, all -white with snow, made by little bits of snow loosened. Introduce this -and the stones leaping rabbit-like down on my sopha of sods. [_Vide_ p. -60.] - - -The sunny mist, the luminous gloom of Plato. - - -[Sidenote: TIME AN ELEMENT OF GRIEF] - -Nothing affects me much at the moment it happens. It either stupefies -me, and I, perhaps, look at a merry-make and dance-the-hay of flies, or -listen entirely to the loud click of the great clock, or I am simply -indifferent, not without some sense of philosophical self-complacency. -For a thing at the moment is but a thing of the moment; it must be taken -up into the mind, diffuse itself through the whole multitude of shapes -and thoughts, not one of which it leaves untinged, between [not one of] -which and it some new thought is not engendered. Now this is a work of -time, but the body feels it quicker with me. - - -[Sidenote: THE POET AND THE SPIDER] - -On St. Herbert's Island, I saw a large spider with most beautiful legs, -floating in the air on his back by a single thread which he was spinning -out, and still, as he spun, heaving on the air, as if the air beneath -was a pavement elastic to his strokes. From the top of a very high tree -he had spun his line; at length reached the bottom, tied his thread -round a piece of grass, and reascended to spin another--a net to hang, -as a fisherman's sea-net hangs, in the sun and wind to dry. - - -[Sidenote: THE COMMUNICABLE] - -One excellent use of communication of sorrow to a friend is this, that -in relating what ails us, we ourselves first know exactly what the real -grief is, and see it for itself in its own form and limits. Unspoken -grief is a misty medley of which the real affliction only plays the -first fiddle, blows the horn to a scattered mob of obscure feelings. -Perhaps, at certain moments, a single, almost insignificant sorrow may, -by association, bring together all the little relicts of pain and -discomfort, bodily and mental, that we have endured even from infancy. - - -[Sidenote: NOSCITUR A SOCIIS] - -One may best judge of men by their pleasures. Who has not known men who -have passed the day in honourable toil with honour and ability, and at -night sought the vilest pleasure in the vilest society? This is the -man's self. The other is a trick learnt by heart (for we may even learn -the power of extemporaneous elocution and instant action as an automatic -trick); but a man's pleasures--children, books, friends, nature, the -Muse--O these deceive not. - - -[Sidenote: TEMPERAMENT AND MORALS October, 1803] - -Even among good and sensible men, how common it is that one attaches -himself scrupulously to the rigid performance of some minor virtue or -makes a point of carrying some virtue into all its minutiæ, and is just -as lax in a similar point, _professedly_ lax. What this is depends, -seemingly, on temperament. _A_ makes no conscience of a little flattery -in cases where he is certain that he is not acting from base or -interested motives--in short, whenever his only motives are the -amusement, the momentary pleasure given, &c., a medley of good nature, -diseased proneness to sympathy, and a habit of _being wiser_ behind the -curtain than his own actions before it. _B_ would die rather than -deviate from truth and sincerity in this instance, but permits himself -to utter, nay, publish the harshest censure of men as moralists and as -literati, and that, too, on his simple _ipse dixit_, without assigning -any reason, and often without having any, save that he himself -_believes_ it--believes it because he _dislikes_ the man, and dislikes -him probably for his looks, or, at best, for some one fault without any -collation of the sum total of the man's qualities. Yet _A_ and _B_ are -both good men, as the world goes. They do not act from conscious -self-love, and are amenable to principles in their own minds. - - -[Sidenote: BRIGHT OCTOBER October 21, 1803, Friday morning] - -A drizzling rain. Heavy masses of shapeless vapour upon the mountains (O -the perpetual forms of Borrowdale!) yet it is no unbroken tale of dull -sadness. Slanting pillars travel across the lake at long intervals, the -vaporous mass whitens in large stains of light--on the lakeward ridge of -that huge arm-chair of Lodore fell a gleam of softest light, that -brought out the rich hues of the late autumn. The woody Castle Crag -between me and Lodore is a rich flower-garden of colours--the brightest -yellows with the deepest crimsons and the infinite shades of brown and -green, the _infinite_ diversity of which blends the whole, so that the -brighter colours seem to be colours upon a ground, not coloured things. -Little woolpacks of white bright vapour rest on different summits and -declivities. The vale is narrowed by the mist and cloud, yet through the -wall of mist you can see into a bower of sunny light, in Borrowdale; the -birds are singing in the tender rain, as if it were the rain of April, -and the decaying foliage were flowers and blossoms. The pillar of smoke -from the chimney rises up in the mist, and is just distinguishable from -it, and the mountain forms in the gorge of Borrowdale consubstantiate -with the mist and cloud, even as the pillar'd smoke--a shade deeper and -a determinate form. - - -[Sidenote: TELEOLOGY AND NATURE WORSHIP A PROTEST October 26, 1803] - -A most unpleasant dispute with Wordsworth and Hazlitt. I spoke, I fear, -too contemptuously; but they spoke so irreverently, so malignantly of -the Divine Wisdom that it overset me. Hazlitt, how easily raised to rage -and hatred self-projected! but who shall find the force that can drag -him up out of the depth into one expression of kindness, into the -showing of one gleam of the light of love on his countenance. Peace be -with him! But _thou_, dearest Wordsworth--and what if Ray, Durham, Paley -have carried the observation of the aptitude of things too far, too -habitually into pedantry? O how many worse pedantries! how few so -harmless, with so much efficient good! Dear William, pardon pedantry in -others, and avoid it in yourself, instead of scoffing and reviling at -pedantry in good men and a good cause and _becoming_ a pedant yourself -in a bad cause--even by that very act becoming one. But, surely, always -to look at the superficies of objects for the purpose of taking delight -in their beauty, and sympathy with their real or imagined life, is as -deleterious to the health and manhood of intellect as, always to be -peering and unravelling contrivance may be to the simplicity of the -affection and the grandeur and unity of the imagination. O dearest -William! would Ray or Durham have spoken of God as you spoke of Nature? - - -[Sidenote: W. H.] - -Hazlitt to the feelings of anger and hatred, phosphorus--it is but to -open the cork and it flames--but to love and serviceable friendship, let -them, like Nebuchadnezzar, heat the furnace with a sevenfold heat, this -triune, Shadrach, Meshach, Abed-nego, will shiver in the midst of it. - - -[Sidenote: THE ORIGIN OF EVIL Thursday October 27, 1803] - -I sate for my picture [to Hazlitt]--heard from Southey the "Institution -of the Jesuits," during which some interesting idea occurred to me, and -has escaped. I made out, however, the whole business of the origin of -evil satisfactorily to my own mind, and forced H. to confess that the -metaphysical argument reduced itself to this, Why did not infinite Power -_always exclusively_ produce such beings as in each moment of their -duration were infinite? why, in short, did not the Almighty create an -absolutely infinite number of Almighties? The hollowness and impiety of -the argument will be felt by considering that, suppose a universal -happiness, a perfection of the moral as well as natural world, still the -whole objection applies just as forcibly as at this moment. The -malignity of the Deity (I shudder even at the assumption of this -affrightful and Satanic language) is manifested in the creation of -archangels and cherubs and the whole company of pure Intelligences -burning in their unquenchable felicity, equally as in the creation of -Neros and Tiberiuses, of stone and leprosy. Suppose yourself perfectly -happy, yet, according to this argument, you _ought_ to charge God with -malignity for having created you--your own life and all its comforts are -in the indictment against the Creator--for surely even a child would be -ashamed to answer, "No! I should still exist, only in that case, instead -of being a man, I should be an infinite being." As if the word _I_ here -had even the remotest semblance of a meaning. Infinitely more absurd -than if I should write the fraction 1/1000 on a slate, then rub it out -with my sponge, and write in the same place the integral number -555,666,879, and then observe that the former figure was _greatly_ -improved by the measure, that _it_ was grown a far finer -figure!--conceiting a _change_ where there had been positive -substitution. Thus, then, it appears that the sole justification of -those who, offended by the vice and misery of the created world, as far -as we know it, impeach the power and goodness of the Almighty, making -the proper cause of such vice and misery to have been a defect either of -power or goodness--it appears, I say, that their sole justification -rests on an argument which has nothing to do with vice and misery, as -vice and misery--on an argument which would hold equally good in heaven -as in hell--on an argument which it might be demonstrated no human being -in a state of happiness could ever have conceived--an argument which a -millennium would annihilate, and which yet would hold equally good then -as now! But even in point of metaphysic the whole rests at last on the -conceivable. Now, I appeal to every man's internal consciousness, if he -will but sincerely and in brotherly simplicity silence the bustle of -argument in his mind and the ungenial feelings that mingle with and fill -up the mob, and then ask his own intellect whether, supposing he could -conceive the creation of positively infinite and co-equal beings, and -whether, supposing this not only possible but real, this has exhausted -his notion of _creatability_? whether the intellect, by an unborn and -original law of its essence, does not demand of infinite power more than -merely infinity of number, infinity of sorts and orders? Let him have -created this infinity of infinites, still there is space in the -imagination for the creation of finites; but instead of these, let him -again create infinites; yet still the same space is left, it is no way -filled up. I feel, too, that the whole rests on a miserable sophism of -applying to an Almighty Being such words as _all_. Why were not _all_ -Gods? But there is no _all_ in creation. It is composed of infinites, -and the imagination, bewildered by heaping infinites on infinites and -wearying of demanding increase of number to a number which it conceives -already infinite, deserted by images and mocked by words, whose sole -substance is the inward sense of difficulty that accompanies all our -notions of infinity applied to numbers--turns with delight to distinct -images and clear ideas, contemplates a _world_, an harmonious system, -where an infinity of kinds subsist each in a multitude of individuals -apportionate to its kind in conformity to laws existing in the divine -nature, and therefore in the nature of things. We cannot, indeed, -_prove_ this in any other way than by finding it as impossible to deny -omniform, as eternal, agency to God--by finding it impossible to -conceive that an omniscient Being should not have a distinct idea of -finite beings, or that distinct ideas in the mind of God should be -without the perfection of real existence, that is, imperfect. But this -is a proof subtle indeed, yet not more so than the difficulty. The -intellect that can start the one can understand the other, if his vices -do not prevent him. Admit for a moment that "conceive" is equivalent to -creation in the divine nature, synonymous with "to beget" (a feeling of -which has given to marriage a mysterious sanctity and sacramental -significance in the mind of many great and good men)--admit this, and -all difficulty ceases, all tumult is hushed, all is clear and beautiful. -We sit in the dark, but each by the side of his little fire, in his own -group, and lo! the summit of the distant mountain is smitten with light. -All night long it has dwelt there, and we look at it and know that the -sun is not extinguished, that he is elsewhere bright and vivifying, that -he is coming to us, to make our fires needless; yet, even now, that our -cold and darkness are so called only in comparison with the heat and -light of the coming day, never wholly deserted of the rays. - -This I wrote on Friday morning, forty minutes past three o'clock, the -sky covered with one cloud that yet lies in dark and light shades, and -though one smooth cloud, by the dark colour, it appears to be _steppy_. - - -[Sidenote: A DREAM AND A PARENTHESIS Friday morning, 5 o'clock] - -Dozing, dreamt of Hartley as at his christening--how, as he was asked -who redeemed him, and was to say, "God the Son," he went on humming and -hawing in one hum and haw (like a boy who knows a thing and will not -make the effort to recollect) so as to irritate me greatly. Awakening -gradually, I was able completely to detect that it was the ticking of my -watch, which lay in the pen-place in my desk, on the round table close -by my ear, and which, in the diseased state of my nerves, had fretted -on my ears. I caught the fact while Hartley's face and moving lips were -yet before my eyes, and his hum and haw and the ticking of the watch -were each the other, as often happens in the passing off of sleep--that -curious modification of ideas by each other which is the element of -_bulls_. I arose instantly and wrote it down. It is now ten minutes past -five. - - -To return to the question of evil--woe to the man to whom it is an -uninteresting question, though many a mind over-wearied by it may shun -it with dread. And here--N.B.--scourge with deserved and lofty scorn -those critics who laugh at the discussion of old questions: God, right -and wrong, necessity and arbitrement, evil, &c. No! forsooth, the -question must be _new, spicy hot_ gingerbread, from a French -constitution to a balloon, change of ministry, or, Which had the best of -it in the parliamentary duel, Wyndham or Sheridan? or, at the best, a -chymical thing [or] whether the new celestial bodies shall be called -planets or asteroids--something new [it must be], something out of -themselves--for whatever is _in_ them is deep within them--must be old -as elementary nature [but] to find no contradiction in the union of old -and novel--to contemplate the Ancient of Days with feelings new as if -they _then_ sprang forth at His own Fiat--this marks the mind that feels -the riddle of the world, and may help to unravel it. But to return to -the question. The whole rests on the sophism of imaginary change in a -case of positive substitution. This, I fully believe, settles the -question. The assertion that there is in the essence of the divine -nature a necessity of omniform harmonious action, and that order and -system (not number--in itself base, disorderly and irrational) define -the creative energy, determine and employ it, and that number is -subservient to order, regulated, organised, made beautiful and rational, -an object both of imagination and intellect by order--this is no mere -assertion, it is strictly in harmony with the fact. For the world -appears so, and it is proved by whatever proves the being of God. -Indeed, it is involved in the idea of God. - - -[Sidenote: THE AIM OF HIS METAPHYSIC] - -What is it that I employ my metaphysics on? To perplex our clearest -notions and living moral instincts? To extinguish the light of love and -of conscience, to put out the life of arbitrement, to make myself and -others _worthless, soulless, Godless_? No, to expose the folly and the -legerdemain of those who have thus abused the blessed organ of language, -to support all old and venerable truths, to support, to kindle, to -project, to make the reason spread light over our feelings, to make our -feelings diffuse vital warmth through our reason--these are my objects -and these my subjects. Is this the metaphysic that bad spirits in hell -delight in? - - -[Sidenote: IN THE VISIONS OF THE NIGHT Nov. 2, 1803, Wednesday morning, -20 minutes past 2 o'clock] - -The voice of the Greta and the cock-crowing. The voice seems to grow -like a flower on or about the water beyond the bridge, while the -cock-crowing is nowhere particular--it is at any place I imagine and do -not distinctly see. A most remarkable sky! the moon, now waned to a -perfect ostrich egg, hangs over our house almost, only so much beyond -it, garden-ward, that I can see it, holding my head out of the smaller -study window. The sky is covered with whitish and with dingy cloudage, -thin dingiest scud close under the moon, and one side of it moving, all -else moveless; but there are two great breaks of blue sky, the one -stretches over our house and away toward Castlerigg, and this is -speckled and blotched with white cloud; the other hangs over the road, -in the line of the road, in the shape of an ellipse or shuttle, I do not -know what to call it--this is unspeckled, all blue, three stars in -it--more in the former break, all unmoving. The water leaden-white, even -as the grey gleam of water is in latest twilight. Now while I have been -writing this and gazing between-whiles (it is forty minutes past two), -the break over the road is swallowed up, and the stars gone; the break -over the house is narrowed into a rude circle, and on the edge of its -circumference one very bright star. See! already the white mass, -thinning at its edge, _fights_ with its brilliance. See! it has bedimmed -it, and now it is gone, and the moon is gone. The cock-crowing too has -ceased. The Greta sounds on for ever. But I hear only the ticking of my -watch in the pen-place of my writing-desk and the far lower note of the -noise of the fire, perpetual, yet seeming uncertain. It is the low voice -of quiet change, of destruction doing its work by little and little. - - -[Sidenote: AURI SACRA FAMES] - -O! The impudence of those who dare hold property to be the great -binder-up of the affections of the young to the old, &c., and Godwin's -folly in his book! Two brothers in this country fought in the mourning -coach, and stood with black eyes and their black clothes all blood over -their father's grave. - - -[Sidenote: EARLY DEATH November 1803] - -Poor Miss Dacre! born with a spinal deformity, that prophesied the early -death it occasioned. Such are generally gentle and innocent beings. God -seems to stamp on their foreheads the seal of death, in sign of -appropriation. No evil dares approach the sacred hieroglyphic on this -seal of redemption; we on earth interpret early death, but the heavenly -spirits, that minister around us, read in it "Abiding innocence." - - -Something to me delicious in the thought that one who dies a baby -presents to the glorified Saviour and Redeemer that same sweet face of -infancy which He blessed when on earth, and sanctified with a kiss, and -solemnly pronounced to be the type and sacrament of regeneration. - - -[Sidenote: THE NIGHT SIDE OF NATURE November 9, Wednesday night, 45 min. -past 6] - -The town, with lighted windows and noise of the _clogged_ passengers in -the streets--sound of the unseen river. Mountains scarcely perceivable -except by eyes long used to them, and supported by the images of memory -flowing in on the impulses of immediate impression. On the sky, black -clouds; two or three dim, untwinkling stars, like full stops on damp -paper, and large stains and spreads of sullen white, like a tunic of -white wool seen here and there through a torn and tattered cloak of -black. Whence do these stains of white proceed all over the sky, so long -after sunset, and from their indifference of place in the sky, seemingly -unaffected by the west? - - -[Sidenote: November 10, 1/2 past 2 o'clock, morning] - -Awoke, after long struggles, from a persecuting dream. The tale of the -dream began in two _images_, in two sons of a nobleman, desperately fond -of shooting, brought out by the footman to resign their property, and to -be made believe that they had none. They were far too cunning for that, -and as they struggled and resisted their cruel wrongers, and my interest -for them, I suppose, increased, I became they--the duality -vanished--Boyer and Christ's Hospital became concerned; yet, still, the -former story was kept up, and I was conjuring him, as he met me in the -street, to have pity on a nobleman's orphan, when I was carried up to -bed, and was struggling up against some unknown impediment--when a noise -of one of the doors awoke me. Drizzle; the sky uncouthly marbled with -white vapours and large black clouds, their surface of a fine woolly -grain, but in the height and key-stone of the arch a round space of sky -with dim watery stars, like a friar's crown; the seven stars in the -central seen through white vapour that, entirely shapeless, gave a -whiteness to the circle of the sky, but stained with exceedingly thin -and subtle flakes of black vapour, might be happily said in language of -Boccace (describing Demogorgon, in his _Genealogia De Gli Dei_) to be -_vestito d'una pallidezza affumicata_. - -[Sidenote: Tuesday night, 1/4 after 7] - -The sky covered with stars, the wind up--right opposite my window, over -Brandelhow, as its centre, and extending from the gorge to Whinlatter, -an enormous black cloud, exactly in the shape of an egg--this, the only -cloud in all the sky, impressed me with a demoniacal grandeur. O for -change of weather! - -[Sidenote: Sunday morning, Nov. 13, 1/2 past 2] - -The sky, in upon Grysdale Pike and onward to the Withop Fells, floored -with flat, smooth, dark or dingy clouds, elsewhere starry. Though seven -stars and all the rest in the height of the heaven be dimmed, those in -the descent bright and frosty. The river has a loud voice, -self-biographer of to-day's rain and thunder-showers. The owls are -silent; they have been very musical. All weathers on Saturday the -twelfth, storm and frost, sunshine, lightning and what not! God be -praised, though sleepless, am marvellously bettered, and I take it for -granted that the barometer has risen. I have been reading Barrow's -treatise "On the Pope's Supremacy," and have made a note on the -_L'Estrangeism_ of his style whenever his thoughts rendered it possible -for the words to be pert, frisky and vulgar--which, luckily, could not -be often, from the gravity of his subjects, the solidity and -appropriateness of his thoughts, and that habitual geometrical -_precision_ of mind which demanded the most _appropriate_ words. He -seems to me below South in dignity; at least, South never sinks so low -as B. sometimes. - - -[Sidenote: AN OPTICAL ILLUSION] - -A pretty optical fact occurred this morning. As I was returning from -Fletcher's, up the back lane and just in sight of the river, I saw, -floating high in the air, somewhere over Mr. Banks', a noble kite. I -continued gazing at it for some time, when, turning suddenly round, I -saw at an equi-distance on my right, that is, over the middle of our -field, a pair of kites floating about. I looked at them for some -seconds, when it occurred to me that I had never before seen two kites -together, and instantly the vision disappeared. It was neither more nor -less than two pair of leaves, each pair on a separate stalk, on a young -fruit tree that grew on the other side of the wall, not two yards from -my eye. The leaves being alternate, did, when I looked at them as -leaves, strikingly resemble wings, and they were the only leaves on the -tree. The magnitude was given by the imagined distance, that distance by -the former adjustment of the eye, which _remained_ in consequence of the -deep impression, the length of time I had been looking at the kite, the -pleasure, &c., and [the fact that] a new object [had] impressed itself -on the eye. - - -[Sidenote: THE INWARD LIGHT] - -In Plotinus the system of the Quakers is most beautifully expressed in -the fifth book of the Fifth Ennead (he is speaking of "the inward -light"): "It is not lawful to enquire from whence it originated, for it -neither approached hither, nor again departs from hence to some other -place, but it either appears to us, or does not appear. So that we ought -not to pursue it as if with a view of discerning its latent original, -but to abide in quiet till it suddenly shines upon us, preparing -ourselves for the blessed spectacle, like the eye waiting for the rising -sun." - - -[Sidenote: PARS ALTERA MEI] - -My nature requires another nature for its support, and reposes only in -another from the necessary indigence of its being. Intensely similar yet -not the same [must that other be]; or, may I venture to say, the same -indeed, but dissimilar, as the same breath sent with the same force, the -same pauses, and the same melody pre-imaged in the mind, into the flute -and the clarion shall be the same _soul diversely incarnate_. - - -[Sidenote: NOT THE BEAUTIFUL BUT THE GOOD] - -"ALL things desire that which is first from a necessity of nature, -prophesying, as it were, that they cannot subsist without the energies -of that first nature. But beauty is not first, it happens only to -intellect, and creates restlessness and seeking; but good, which is -present from the beginning and unceasingly to our innate appetite, -abides with us even in sleep, and never seizes the mind with -astonishment, and requires no peculiar reminiscence to convince us of -its presence."--PLOTINUS. - -This is just and profound, yet perfect beauty being an abstract of good, -in and for that particular form excites in me no passion but that of an -admiration so quiet as scarcely to admit of the name _passion_, but one -that, participating in the same root of soul, does yet spring up with -excellences that I have not. To this I am driven by a desire of -self-completion with a restless and inextinguishable love. God is not -all things, for in this case He would be indigent of all; but all things -are God, and eternally indigent of God. And in the original meaning of -the word _essence_ as predicable of that concerning which you can say, -This is he, or That is he (this or that rather than any other), in this -sense of the word essence, I perfectly coincide with the Platonists and -Plotinists that, if we add to the nature of God either essence or -intellect or beauty, we deprive Him of being the Good himself, the only -One, the purely and absolutely One. - - -[Sidenote: A MOON-SET Friday, Nov. 25, 1803, morning 45 minutes past] - -After a night of storm and rain, the sky calm and white, by blue vapour -thinning into formlessness instead of clouds, the mountains of height -covered with snow, the secondary mountains black. The moon descending -aslant the [V]^A, through the midst of which the great road -winds, set exactly behind Whinlatter Point, marked A. She being an egg, -somewhat uncouthly shaped, perhaps, but an ostrich's egg rather than any -other (she is two nights more than a half-moon), she set behind the -black point, fitted herself on to it like a cap of fire, then became a -crescent, then a mountain of fire in the distance, then the peak itself -on fire, one steady flame; then stars of the first, second and third -magnitude, and vanishing, upboiled a swell of light, and in the next -second the whole sky, which had been _sable blue_ around the yellow -moon, whitened and brightened for as large a space as would take the -moon half an hour to descend through. - - -[Sidenote: THE DEATH OF ADAM A DREAM Dec. 6, 1803] - -Adam travelling in his old age came to a set of the descendants of Cain, -ignorant of the origin of the world, and treating him as a madman, -killed him. A sort of dream which I had this night. - - -[Sidenote: A MAN'S A MAN FOR ALL THAT] - -We ought to suspect reasoning founded wholly on the difference of man -from man, not on their commonnesses, which are infinitely greater. So I -doubt the wisdom of the treatment of sailors and criminals, because it -is wholly grounded on their vices, as if the vices formed the whole or -major part of their being. - - -[Sidenote: A DEFENCE OF METAPHYSIC] - -Abstruse reasoning is to the inductions of common sense what reaping is -to delving. But the implements with which we reap, how are they gained? -by delving. Besides, what is common sense now was abstract reasoning -with earlier ages. - - -[Sidenote: A SUNSET] - -A beautiful sunset, the sun setting behind Newlands across the foot of -the lake. The sky is cloudless, save that there is a cloud on Skiddaw, -one on the highest mountains in Borrowdale, some on Helvellyn, and that -the sun sets in a glorious cloud. These clouds are of various shapes, -various colours, and belong to their mountains and have nothing to do -with the sky. N.B.--There is something metallic, silver playfully and -imperfectly gilt and highly polished, or, rather, something -mother-of-pearlish, in the sun-gleams on ice, thin ice. - - -[Sidenote: EXTREMES MEET] - -I have repeatedly said that I could make a volume if only I had noted -down, as they occurred to my recollection, the instances of the proverb -"Extremes Meet." This night, Sunday, December 11, 1803, half-past -eleven, I have determined to devote the last nine pages of my -pocket-book to a collection of the same. - - 1. The parching air - Burns frore and cold performs the effect of fire. - - _Paradise Lost_, ii. 594. - - 2. Insects by their smallness, the mammoth by its hugeness, - terrible. - - 3. In the foam-islands in a fiercely boiling pool, at the - bottom of a waterfall, there is sameness from infinite change. - - 4. The excess of humanity and disinterestedness in polite - society, the desire not to give pain, for example, not to talk - of your own diseases and misfortunes, and to introduce nothing - but what will give pleasure, destroy all humanity and - disinterestedness, by making it intolerable, through desuetude, - to listen to the complaints of our equals, or of any, where the - listening does not gratify or excite some vicious pride and - sense of superiority. - - 5. It is difficult to say whether a perfectly unheard-of - subject or a _crambe bis cocta_, if chosen by a man of genius, - would excite in the higher degree the sense of novelty. Take, - as an instance of the latter, the "Orestes" of Sotheby. - - 6. Dark with excess of light. - - 7. Self-absorption and worldly-mindedness (N.B.--The latter a - most philosophical word). - - 8. The dim intellect sees an absolute oneness, the perfectly - clear intellect _knowingly perceives_ it. Distinction and - plurality lie in the betwixt. - - 9. The naked savage and the gymnosophist. - - 10. Nothing and intensest absolute being. - - 11. Despotism and ochlocracy. - - -[Sidenote: ABSTRUSE RESEARCH] - -A dirty business! "How," said I, with a great effort to conquer my -laziness and a great wish to rest in the generality, "what do you -include under the words 'dirty business'"? I note this in order to -remember the reluctance the mind has in general to analysis. - - -The soul within the body--can I, any way, compare this to the reflection -of the fire seen through my window on the solid wall, seeming, of -course, within the solid wall, as deep within as the distance of the -fire from the wall. I fear I can make nothing out of it; but why do I -always hurry away from any interesting thought to do something -uninteresting? As, for instance, when this thought struck me, I turned -off my attention suddenly and went to look for the copy of Wolff which I -had missed. Is it a cowardice of all deep feeling, even though -pleasurable? or is it laziness? or is it something less obvious than -either? Is it connected with my epistolary embarrassments? - -["The window of my library at Keswick is opposite to the fireplace. At -the coming on of evening, it was my frequent amusement to watch the -image or reflection of the fire that seemed burning in the bushes or -between the trees in different parts of the garden."--_The Friend._ -_Coleridge's Works_, ii. 135.] - - -As I was sitting at the foot of my bed, reading with my face downwards, -I saw a phantom of my face upon the nightcap which lay just on the -middle of my pillow--it was indistinct but of bright colours, and came -only as my head bent low. Was it the action of the rays of my face upon -my eyes? that is, did my eyes see my face, and from the sidelong and -faint action of the rays place the image in that situation? But I moved -the nightcap and I lost it. - - -[Sidenote: Dec. 19, 1803, morning] - -I have only to shut my eyes to feel how ignorant I am whence these forms -and coloured forms, and colours distinguishable beyond what I can -distinguish, derive their birth. These varying and infinite co-present -colours, what are they? I ask, to what do they belong in my waking -remembrance? and almost never receive an answer. Only I perceive and -know that whatever I change, in any part of me, produces some change in -these eye-spectra; as, for instance, if I press my legs or change sides. - - -[Sidenote: OF STREAMY ASSOCIATION] - -I will at least make the attempt to explain to myself the origin of -moral evil from the streamy nature of association, which thinking curbs -and rudders. Do not the bad passions in dreams throw light and show of -proof upon this hypothesis? If I can but explain those passions I shall -gain light, I am sure. A clue! a clue! a Hecatomb à la Pythagoras, if it -unlabyrinth me. - - -[Sidenote: December 28, 1803, 11 o'clock] - -I note the beautiful luminous shadow of my pencil-point which follows it -from the candle, or rather goes before it and illuminates the word I am -writing. But, to resume, take in the blessedness of innocent children, -the blessedness of sweet sleep, do they or do they not contradict the -argument of evil from streamy associations? I hope not, but all is to be -thought over and _into_. And what is the height and ideal of mere -association? Delirium. But how far is this state produced by pain and -denaturalisation? And what are these? In short, as far as I can see -anything in this total mist, vice is imperfect yet existing volition, -giving diseased currents of association, because it yields on all sides -and yet _is_--so, too, think of madness! - - -[Sidenote: A DOUBTFUL EXPERIMENT] - -December 30th, half-past one o'clock, or, rather, Saturday morning, -December 31st, put rolled bits of paper, many tiny bits of wick, some -tallow, and the soap together. The whole flame, equal in size to -half-a-dozen candles, did not give the light of one, and the letters of -the book looked by the unsteady flare just as through tears or in -dizziness--every line of every letter dislocated into angles, or like -the mica in crumbly stones. - - -[Sidenote: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MOTION] - -The experiment over leaf illustrates my idea of motion, namely, that it -is a presence and absence rapidly alternating, so that the fits of -_absence_ exist continuously in the feeling, and the fits of presence -_vice versâ_ continuedly in the eye. Of course I am speaking of motion -psychologically, not physically, what it is in us, not what the -supposed mundane cause may be. I believe that what we call _motion_ is -our consciousness of motion arising from the interruption of motion, the -action of the soul in suffering resistance. Free unresisted action, the -going forth of the soul, life without consciousness, is, properly, -infinite, that is unlimited. For whatever resists limits, and whatever -is unresisted is unlimited. This, psychologically speaking, is space, -while the sense of resistance or limitation is time, and motion is a -synthesis of the two. The closest approach of time to space forms -co-existent multitude. - - -[Sidenote: RECOLLECTION AND REMEMBRANCE] - -There is an important distinction between the memory or reminiscent -faculty of sensation which young children seem to possess in so small a -degree, from their perpetual desire to have a tale repeated to them, and -the memory of words and images which the very same children manifestly -possess in an unusual degree, even to sealing-wax accuracy of retention -and representation. - - -[Sidenote: THE ETHICS OF SPINOZA] - -If Spinoza had left the doctrine of miracles untouched, and had not -written so powerfully in support of universal toleration, his ethics -would never have brought on him the charge of Atheism. His doctrine, in -this respect, is truly and severely orthodox, in the reformed Church; -neither do I know that the Church of Rome has authoritatively decided -between the Spinosists and Scotists in their great controversy on the -nature of the being which creatures possess. - - -[Sidenote: A UNITARIAN SCHOOLMAN] - -Creation is explained by Joannes Scotus Erigena as only a manifestation -of the unity of God in forms--_et fit et facit, et creat et creatur_. -Lib. 4. p. 7. - -P. 8. A curious and highly-philosophical account of the Trinity, and -completely Unitarian. God is, is wise, and is living. The essence we -call Father, the wisdom Son, the life the Holy Spirit. And he -positively affirms that these three exist only as distinguishable -relations--_habitudines_; and he states the whole doctrine to be an -invention and condescension of Theology to the intellect of man, which -must _define_, and consequently _personify_, in order to understand, and -must have some phantom of understanding in order to keep alive in the -heart the substantial faith. They are _fuel_ to the sacred fire--in the -empyrean it may burn without fuel, and they who do so are seraphs. - - -[Sidenote: A CROWD OF THOUGHTS] - -A fine epitheton of man would be "Lord of fire and light." All other -creatures whose existence we perceive are mere alms-receivers of both. - - -A company of children driving a hungry, hard-skinned ass out of a -corn-field. The ass cannot by such weaklings be driven so hard but he -will feed as he goes. - - -Such light as lovers love, when the waxing moon steals in behind a -black, black cloud, emerging soon enough to make the blush visible which -the long kiss had kindled. - - -All notions [remain] hushed in the phantasms of place and time that -still escape the finest sieve and most searching winnow of our reason -and abstraction. - - -A rosemary tree, large as a timber tree, is a sweet sign of the -antiquity and antique manners of the house against which it groweth. -"Rosemary" (says Parkinson, _Theatrum Botanicum_ [London, 1640] p. 76) -"is a herb of as great use with us in these days as any whatsoever, not -only for physical but civil purposes--the civil uses, as all know, are -at weddings, funerals, &c., to bestow on friends." - - -Great harm is done by bad poets in trivialising beautiful expressions -and images and associating disgust and indifference with the technical -forms of poetry. - - -Advantage of public schools. [They teach men to be] content with school -praise when they publish. Apply this to Cottle and J. Jennings. - - -Religious slang operates better on women than on men. N.B.--Why? I will -give over--it is not _tanti_! - - -Poem. Ghost of a mountain--the forms, seizing my body as I passed, -became realities--I a ghost, till I had reconquered my substance. - - -The sopha of sods. Lack-wit and the clock find him at last in the -Yorkshire cave, where the waterfall is. - -[The reference is, no doubt, to Wordsworth's "Idiot Boy," which was -composed at Nether Stowey, in 1798. In a letter addressed to John Wilson -of June 5, 1802, Wordsworth discusses and discards the use of the word -"lackwit" as an equivalent to "idiot." The "Sopha of Sods" was on -Latrigg. In her journal for August, 1800, Dorothy Wordsworth records the -making of a seat on Windybrow, a part of Latrigg. Possibly this was the -"Sopha of Sods."--_Life of W. Wordsworth_, 1889, i. 268, 403.] - - -The old stump of the tree, with briar-roses and bramble leaves wreathed -round and round--a bramble arch--a foxglove in the centre. - - -The palm, still faithful to forsaken deserts, an emblem of hope. - - -The stedfast rainbow in the fast-moving, fast-hurrying hail-mist! What a -congregation of images and feelings, of fantastic permanence amidst the -rapid change of tempest--quietness the daughter of storm. - - -[Sidenote: "POEM ON SPIRIT, OR ON SPINOZA"] - -I would make a pilgrimage to the deserts of Arabia to find the man who -could make me understand how the _one can be many_. Eternal, universal -mystery! It seems as if it were impossible, yet it _is_, and it is -everywhere! It is indeed a contradiction in _terms_, and only in terms. -It is the co-presence of feeling and life, limitless by their very -essence, with form by its very essence limited, determinable, definite. - - -[Sidenote: TRANS-SUBSTANTIATION] - -Meditate on trans-substantiation! What a conception of a miracle! Were -one a Catholic, what a sublime oration might one not make of it? -Perpetual, [Greek: pan]topical, yet offering no violence to the sense, -exercising no domination over the free-will--a miracle always existing, -yet perceived only by an act of the free-will--the beautiful fuel of the -fire of faith--the fire must be pre-existent or it is not fuel, yet it -feeds and supports and is necessary to feed and support the fire that -converts it into his own nature. - - -[Sidenote: THE DANGER OF THE MEAN] - -Errors beget opposite errors, for it is our imperfect nature to run into -extremes. But this trite, because ever-recurring, truth is not the -whole. Alas! those are endangered who have avoided the extremes, as if -among the Tartars, in opposition to a faction that had unnaturally -lengthened their noses into monstrosity, there should arise another who -had cut off theirs flat to the face, Socinians in physiognomy. The few -who retained their noses as nature made them and reason dictated would -assuredly be persecuted by the noseless party as adherents of the -rhinocerotists or monster-nosed men, which is the case of those [Greek: -archaspistai] [braves] of the English Church, called Evangelicals. -Excess of Calvinism produced Arminianism, and those not in excess must -therefore be Calvinists! - - -[Sidenote: ALAS! THEY HAD BEEN FRIENDS IN YOUTH] - -To a former friend who pleaded how near he formerly had been, how near -and close a friend! Yes! you were, indeed, near to my heart and native -to my soul--a part of my being and its natural, even as the chaff to -corn. But since that time, through whose fault I will be mute, I have -been thrashed out by the flail of experience. Because you have been, -therefore, never more can you be a part of the grain. - - -[Sidenote: Oct. 31, 1803 AVE PH[OE]BE IMPERATOR] - -The full moon glided behind a black cloud. And what then? and who cared? -It was past seven o'clock in the morning. There is a small cloud in the -east, not larger than the moon and ten times brighter than she! So -passes night, and all her favours vanish in our minds ungrateful! - - -[Sidenote: THE ONE AND THE GOOD] - -In the chapter on abstract ideas I might introduce the subject by -quoting the eighth Proposition of Proclus' "Elements of Theology." The -whole of religion seems to me to rest on and in the question: The One -and The Good--are these words or realities? I long to read the schoolmen -on the subject. - - -[Sidenote: A MORTAL AGONY OF THOUGHT] - -There are thoughts that seem to give me a power over my own life. I -could kill myself by persevering in the thought. Mem., to describe as -accurately as may be the approximating symptoms. I met something very -like this observation where I should least have expected such a -coincidence of sentiment, such sympathy with so wild a feeling of -mine--in p. 71 of Blount's translation of "The Spanish Rogue," 1623. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -_1804_ - - "Home-sickness is no baby-pang."--S. T. C. - - -[Sidenote: THE UNDISCIPLINED WILL] - -This evening, and indeed all this day, I ought to have been reading and -filling the margins of Malthus. ["An Essay on the Principles of -Population, &c., London," 1803, 4to. The copy annotated by Coleridge is -now in the British Museum.] - -I had begun and found it pleasant. Why did I neglect it? Because I ought -not to have done this. The same applies to the reading and writing of -letters, essays, etc. Surely this is well worth a serious analysis, -that, by understanding, I may attempt to heal it. For it is a deep and -wide disease in my moral nature, at once elm-and-oak-rooted. Is it love -of liberty, of spontaneity or what? These all express, but do not -explain the fact. - -[Sidenote: Tuesday morning, January 10, 1804] - -After I had got into bed last night I said to myself that I had been -pompously enunciating as a difficulty, a problem of easy and common -solution--viz., that it was the effect of association. From infancy up -to manhood, under parents, schoolmasters, inspectors, etc., our -pleasures and pleasant self-chosen pursuits (self-chosen because -pleasant, and not originally pleasant because self-chosen) have been -forcibly interrupted, and dull, unintelligible rudiments, or painful -tasks imposed upon us instead. Now all duty is felt as a _command_, and -every command is of the nature of an offence. Duty, therefore, by the -law of association being felt as a command from without, would naturally -call up the sensation of the pain roused from the commands of parents -and schoolmasters. But I awoke this morning at half-past one, and as -soon as disease permitted me to think at all, the shallowness and -sophistry of this solution flashed upon me at once. I saw that the -phenomenon occurred far, far too early: I have observed it in infants of -two or three months old, and in Hartley I have seen it turned up and -layed bare to the unarmed eye of the merest common sense. The fact is -that interruption of itself is painful, because and as far as it acts as -_disruption_. And thus without any reference to or distinct recollection -of my former theory I saw great reason to attribute the effect, wholly, -to the streamy nature of the associative faculty, and the more, as it is -evident that they labour under this defect who are most reverie-ish and -streamy--Hartley, for instance, and myself. This seems to me no common -corroboration of my former thought or the origin of moral evil in -general. - - -[Sidenote: COGITARE EST LABORARE] - -A time will come when passiveness will attain the dignity of worthy -activity, when men shall be as proud within themselves of having -remained in a state of deep tranquil emotion, whether in reading or in -hearing or in looking, as they now are in having figured away for an -hour. Oh! how few can transmute activity of mind into emotion! Yet there -are as active as the stirring tempest and playful as the may-blossom in -a breeze of May, who can yet for hours together remain with _hearts_ -broad awake, and the _understanding_ asleep in all but its retentiveness -and _receptivity_. Yea, and (in) the latter (state of mind) evince as -great genius as in the former. - - -[Sidenote: A SHEAF OF ANECDOTES, Sunday morning, Feb. 5, 1804] - -I called on Charles Lamb fully expecting him to be out, and intending -all the way, to write to him. I found him at home, and while sitting and -talking to him, took the pen and note-paper and began to write. - - -As soon as Holcroft heard that Mary Wollstonecraft was dead, he took a -chaise and came with incredible speed to "have Mrs. Godwin opened for a -remarkable woman!" - - -[Sidenote: Sunday morning, Feb. 13, 1804] - -Lady Beaumont told me that when she was a child, previously to her -saying her prayers, she endeavoured to think of a mountain or great -river, or something great, in order to raise up her soul and kindle it. - - -Rickman has a tale about George Dyer and his "Ode to the Hero Race." -"Your Aunt, Sir," said George to the Man of Figures, "your Aunt is a -very sensible woman. Why I read Sir, my Ode to her and she said that it -was a very pretty Thing. There are very few women, Sir! that possess -that fine discrimination, Sir!" - - -The huge Organ Pipe at Exeter, larger than the largest at Haarlem, at -first was dumb. Green determined to make it speak, and tried all means -in vain, till at last he made a second pipe precisely alike, and placed -it at its side. _Then_ it spoke. - - -Sir George Beaumont found great advantage in learning to draw from -Nature through gauze spectacles. - - -At Göttingen, at Blumenbach's lectures on Psychology, when some -anatomical preparations were being handed round, there came in and -seated himself by us Englishmen a _Hospitator_, one, that is, who -attends one or two lectures unbidden and unforbidden and gratis, as a -stranger, and on a claim, as it were, of hospitality. This _Hospes_ was -the uncouthest, strangest fish, pretending to human which I ever beheld. -I turned to Greenough and "Who broke his bottle?" I whispered. - - -Godwin and Holcroft went together to Underwood's chambers. "Little Mr. -Underwood," said they, "we are perfectly acquainted with the subject of -your studies, only ignorant of the particulars. What is the difference -between a thermometer and a barometer?" - - -[Sidenote: THE ADOLESCENCE OF LOVE] - -It is a pleasure to me to perceive the buddings of virtuous loves, to -know their minutes of increase, their stealth and silent growings-- - -A pretty idea, that of a good soul watching the progress of an -attachment from the first glance to the time when the lover himself -becomes conscious of it. A poem for my "Soother of Absence." - - -[Sidenote: THE RAGE FOR MONITION] - - To J. Tobin, Esq., April 10, 1804. - -Men who habitually enjoy robust health have, too generally, the trick, -and a very cruel one it is, of imagining that they discover the secret -of all their acquaintances' ill health in some malpractice or other; -and, sometimes, by gravely asserting this, here there and everywhere (as -who likes his penetration [hid] under a bushel?), they not only do all -they can, without intending it, to deprive the poor sufferer of that -sympathy which is always a comfort and, in some degree, a support to -human nature, but, likewise, too often implant serious alarm and -uneasiness in the minds of the person's relatives and his nearest and -dearest connections. Indeed (but that I have known its inutility, that I -should be ridiculously sinning against my own law which I was -propounding, and that those who are most fond of advising are the least -able to hear advice from others, as the passion to command makes men -disobedient) I should often have been on the point of advising you -against the two-fold rage of advising and of discussing character, both -the one and the other of which infallibly generates presumption and -blindness to our own faults. Nay! more particularly where, from whatever -cause, there exists a slowness to understand or an aptitude to mishear -and consequently misunderstand what has been said, it too often renders -an otherwise truly good man a mischief-maker to an extent of which he is -but little aware. Our friends' reputation should be a religion to us, -and when it is lightly sacrificed to what self-adulation calls a love of -telling the truth (in reality a lust of talking something seasoned with -the cayenne and capsicum of personality), depend upon it, something in -the heart is warped or warping, more or less according to the greater or -lesser power of the counteracting causes. I confess to you, that being -exceedingly low and heart-fallen, I should have almost sunk under the -operation of reproof and admonition (the whole too, in my conviction, -grounded on utter mistake) at the moment I was quitting, perhaps for -ever! my dear country and all that makes it so dear--but the high esteem -I cherish towards you, and my sense of your integrity and the reality of -your attachment and concern blows upon me refreshingly as the sea-breeze -on the tropic islander. Show me anyone made better by blunt advice, and -I may abate of my dislike to it, but I have experienced the good effects -of the contrary in Wordsworth's conduct to me; and, in Poole and others, -have witnessed enough of its ill effects to be convinced that it does -little else but harm both to the adviser and the advisee. - -[See _Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge_, Letter cli., ii. 474, 475.] - - -[Sidenote: PLACES AND PERSONS, Thursday, April 19, 1804] - -This is Spain! That is Africa! Now, then, I have seen Africa! &c., &c. -O! the power of names to give interest. When I first sate down, with -Europe on my left and Africa on my right, both distinctly visible, I -felt a quickening of the movements in the blood, but still it felt as a -pleasure of _amusement_ rather than of thought or elevation; and at the -same time, and gradually winning on the other, the nameless silent forms -of nature were working in me, like a tender thought in a man who is -hailed merrily by some acquaintance in his work, and answers it in the -same tone. This is Africa! That is Europe! There is _division_, sharp -boundary, abrupt change! and what are they in nature? Two mountain banks -that make a noble river of the interfluent sea, not existing and acting -with distinctness and manifoldness indeed, but at once and as one--no -division, no change, no antithesis! Of all men I ever knew, Wordsworth -himself not excepted, I have the faintest pleasure in things contingent -and transitory. I never, except as a forced courtesy of conversation, -ask in a stage-coach, Whose house is that? nor receive the least -additional pleasure when I receive the answer. Nay, it goes to a disease -in me. As I was gazing at a wall in Caernarvon Castle, I wished the -guide fifty miles off that was telling me, In this chamber the Black -Prince was born (or whoever it was). I am not certain whether I should -have seen with any emotion the mulberry-tree of Shakspere. If it were a -tree of no notice in itself, I am sure that I should feel by an -effort--with self-reproach at the dimness of the feeling; if a striking -tree, I fear that the pleasure would be diminished rather than -increased, that I should have no unity of feeling, and find in the -constant association of Shakspere having planted it an intrusion that -prevented me from wholly (as a whole man) losing myself in the flexures -of its branches and intertwining of its roots. No doubt there are times -and conceivable circumstances in which the contrary would be true, in -which the thought that under this rock by the sea-shore I know that -Giordano Bruno hid himself from the pursuit of the enraged priesthood, -and overcome with the power and sublimity of the truths for which they -sought his life, thought his life therefore given him that he might bear -witness to the truths, and _morti ultra occurrens_, returned and -surrendered himself! So, here, on this bank Milton used to lie, in late -May, when a young man, and familiar with all its primroses, made them -yet dearer than their dear selves, by that sweetest line in the Lycidas, -"And the rathe primrose that forsaken dies:" or from this spot the -immortal deer-stealer, on his escape from Warwickshire, had the first -view of London, and asked himself, And what am I to do there? At certain -times, uncalled and sudden, subject to no bidding of my own or others, -these thoughts would come upon me like a storm, and fill the place with -something more than nature. But these are not contingent or transitory, -they are nature, even as the elements are nature--yea, more to the -human mind, for the mind has the power of abstracting all agency from -the former and considering [them] as mere effects and instruments. But a -Shakspere, a Milton, a Bruno, exist in the mind as pure _action_, -defecated of all that is material and passive. And the great moments -that formed them--it is a kind of impiety against a voice within us, not -to regard them as predestined, and therefore things of now, for ever, -and which were always. But it degrades the sacred feeling, and is to it -what stupid superstition is to enthusiastic religion, when a man makes a -pilgrimage to see a great man's shin-bone found unmouldered in his -coffin. Perhaps the matter stands thus. I could feel amused by these -things, and should be, if there had not been connected with the great -name upon which the amusement wholly depends a higher and deeper -pleasure, that will [not] endure the co-presence of so mean a companion; -while the mass of mankind, whether from nature or (as I fervently hope) -from error of rearing and the worldliness of their after-pursuits, are -rarely susceptible of any other pleasures than those of _amusement_, -gratification of curiosity, novelty, surprise, wonderment, from the -glaring, the harshly-contrasted, the odd, the accidental, and find the -reading of the _Paradise Lost_ a task somewhat alleviated by a few -entertaining incidents, such as the pandemonium and self-endwarfment of -the devils, the fool's paradise and the transformation of the infernal -court into serpents and of their intended applauses into hisses. - -["Dear Sir Walter Scott and myself were exact, but harmonious opposites -in this--that every old ruin, hill, river or tree called up in his mind -a host of historical or biographical associations; whereas, for myself, -I believe I should walk over the plain of Marathon without taking more -interest in it than in any other plain of similar features."--_Table -Talk_, August 4, 1833, Bell & Co., 1834, p. 242.] - - -[Sidenote: THE INTOLERANCE OF CONVERTS] - -Why do we so very, very often see men pass from one extreme to the -other? [Greek: stodkardia] [Stoddart, for instance]. Alas! they -sought not the truth, but praise, self-importance, and above all [the -sense of] something doing! Disappointed, they hate and persecute their -former opinion, which no man will do who by meditation had adopted it, -and in the course of unfeigned meditation gradually enlarged the circle -and so get out of it. For in the perception of its falsehood he will -form a perception of certain truths which had made the falsehood -plausible, and can never cease to venerate his own sincerity of -intention and Philalethie. For, perhaps, we never _hate_ any opinion, or -can do so, till we have _impersonated_ it. We hate the persons because -they oppose us, symbolise that opposition under the form and words of -the opinion and then hate the person for the opinion and the opinion for -the person. - -[For some weeks after his arrival at Valetta Coleridge remained as the -guest of Dr. John (afterwards Sir John) Stoddart, at that time H.M. -Advocate at Malta.] - - -[Sidenote: FACTS AND FICTION] - -Facts! Never be weary of discussing and exposing the hollowness of -these. [For, in the first place,] every man [is] an accomplice on one -side or the other, [and, secondly, there is] _human testimony_. "You -were in fault, I hear," said B to C, and B had heard it from A. [Now] A -had said, "And C, God bless her, was perhaps the innocent occasion"! But -what a trifle this to the generality of blunders! - - -[Sidenote: CANDOUR ANOTHER NAME FOR CANT] - -[I have no pity or patience for that], blindness which comes from -putting out your own eyes and in mock humility refusing to form an -opinion on the right and the wrong of a question. "If we say so of the -Sicilians, why may not Buonaparte say this of the Swiss?" and so forth. -As if England and France, Swiss and Sicilian were the x y z of Algebra, -naked names of unknown quantities. [What is this but] to fix morals -without morality, and [to allow] general rules to supersede all -particular thought? And though it be never acted on in reality, yet the -opinion is pernicious. It kills public spirit and deadens national -effort. - - -[Sidenote: A SIMILE] - -The little point, or, sometimes, minim globe of flame remains on the -[newly] lighted taper for three minutes or more unaltered. But, see, it -is given over, and then, at once, the flame darts or plunges down into -the wick, then up again, and all is bright--a fair cone of flame, with -its black column in it, and minor cone, shadow-coloured, resting upon -the blue flame the common base of the two cones, that is, of the whole -flame. A pretty detailed simile in the manner of J. Taylor might be made -of this, applying it to slow learners, to opportunities of grace -manifestly neglected and seemingly lost and useless. - - -[Sidenote: O STAR BENIGN] - -Monday evening, July 9, 1804, about 8 o'clock. The glorious evening star -coasted the moon, and at length absolutely crested its upper tip.... It -was the most singular and at the same time beautiful sight I ever -beheld. Oh, that it could have appeared the same in England, at -Grasmere! - - -[Sidenote: NEFAS EST AB HOSTE DOCERI] - -In the Jacobinism of anti-jacobins, note the dreariest feature of -Jacobins, a contempt for the institutions of our ancestors and of past -wisdom, which has generated Cobbetts and contempt of the liberty of the -press and of liberty itself. Men are not wholly unmodified by the -opinion of their fellow-men, even when they happen to be enemies or -(still worse) of the opposite faction. - - -[Sidenote: THE MANY AND THE ONE] - -I saw in early youth, as in a dream, the birth of the planets; and my -eyes beheld as _one_ what the understanding afterwards divided into (1) -the origin of the masses, (2) the origin of their motions, and (3) the -site or position of their circles and ellipses. All the deviations, too, -were seen as one intuition of one the self-same necessity, and this -necessity was a law of spirit, and all was spirit. And in matter all -beheld the past activity of others or their own--and this reflection, -this echo is matter--its only essence, if essence it be. And of this, -too, I saw the necessity and understood it, but I understood not how -infinite multitude and manifoldness could be one; only I saw and -understood that it was yet more out of my power to comprehend how it -could be otherwise--and in this unity I worshipped in the depth of -knowledge that passes all understanding the Being of all things--and in -Being their sole goodness--and I saw that God is the One, the -Good--possesses it not, but _is it_. - - -[Sidenote: THE WINDMILL AND ITS SHADOW] - -The visibility of motion at a great distance is increased by all that -increases the the distinct visibility of the moving object. This -Saturday, August 3, 1804, in the room immediately under the tower in St. -Antonio, as I was musing on the difference, whether ultimate or only of -degree, between _auffassen_ and _erkennen_ (an idea received and an idea -acquired) I saw on the top of the distant hills a shadow on the sunny -ground moving very fast and wave-like, yet always in the same place, -which I should have attributed to the windmill close by, but the -windmill (which I saw distinctly too) appeared at rest. On steady -gazing, however, (and most plainly with my spy-glass) I found that it -was not at rest, but that this was its shadow. The windmill itself was -white in the sunshine, and there were sunny white clouds at its back, -the shadow black on the white ground. - - -[Sidenote: SYRACUSE Thursday night at the Opera, September 27, 1804] - -In reflecting on the cause of the "meeting soul" in music, the seeming -recognisance etc., etc., the whole explanation of _memory_ as in the -nature of _accord_ struck upon me; accord produces a phantom of memory, -because memory is always in accord. - - -[Sidenote: Oct. 5, 1804] - -Philosophy to a few, religion with many, is the friend of poetry, as -producing the two conditions of pleasure arising from poetry, namely -tranquillity and the attachment of the affections to _generalisations_. -God, soul, Heaven, the Gospel miracles, etc., are a sort of _poetry_ -compared with Lombard Street and Change Alley speculations. - - -[Sidenote: A SERIOUS MEMORANDUM Syracuse, Saturday, Oct. 5, 1804] - -In company, indeed, with all except a very chosen few, never dissent -from anyone as to the _merits_ of another, especially in your own -supposed department, but content yourself with praising, in your turn; -the really good praises of the unworthy are felt by a good man, and man -of genius as detractions from the worthy, and robberies--so the _flashy_ -moderns seem to _rob_ the ancients of the honours due to them, and Bacon -and Harrington are _not_ read because Hume and Condillac _are_. This is -an evil; but oppose it, if at all, in books in which you can evolve the -whole of your reasons and feeling, not in conversation when it will be -inevitably attributed to envy. Besides, they who praise the unworthy -must be the injudicious: and the eulogies of critics without taste or -judgment are the natural pay of authors without feeling or genius--and -why rob them? _Sint unicuique sua præmia._ Coleridge! Coleridge! will -you never learn to appropriate your conversation to your company! Is it -not desecration, indelicacy, and a proof of great weakness and even -vanity to talk to, etc. etc., as if you [were talking to] Wordsworth or -Sir G. Beaumont? - - -[Sidenote: "CAST NOT YOUR PEARLS BEFORE SWINE"] - -[Sidenote: Oct. 11, Syracuse, Lecky's, midnight] - -O young man, who hast seen, felt and known the truth, to whom reality is -a phantom and virtue and mind the sole actual and permanent being, do -not degrade the truth in thee by disputing. Avoid it! do not by any -persuasion be tempted to it! Surely not by vanity or the weakness of the -pleasure of communicating thy thoughts and awaking sympathy, but not -even by the always mixed hope of producing conviction. This is not the -mode, this is not the time, not the place. [Truth will be better served] -by modestly and most truly saying, "Your arguments are all consequent, -if the foundation be admitted. I do not admit the foundation. But this -will be a business for moments of thought, for a Sabbath-day of your -existence. Then, perhaps, a voice from within will say to you, better, -because [in a manner] more adapted to you, all I can say. But if I felt -this to _be_ that day or that moment, a sacred sympathy would at once -compel and inspire me to the task of uttering the very truth. Till then -I am right willing to bear the character of a mystic, a visionary, or -self-important juggler, who nods his head and says, 'I could if I -would.' But I cannot, I _may_ not, bear the reproach of profaning the -truth which is my life in moments when all passions heterogeneous to it -are eclipsing it to the exclusion of its dimmest ray. I might lose my -tranquillity, and in acquiring the _passion_ of proselytism lose the -_sense_ of conviction. I might become _positive_! Now I am _certain_! I -might have the heat and fermentation, now I have the warmth of life." - - -[Sidenote: THE YEARNING OF THE FINITE FOR THE INFINITE: Oct. 13, 1804, -Saturday, Syracuse] - -Each man having a spark (to use the old metaphor) of the Divinity, yet a -whole fire-grate of humanity--each, therefore, will legislate for the -whole, and spite of the _De gustibus non est disputandum_, even in -trifles--and, till corrected by experience, at least, in this endless -struggle of presumption, really occasioned by the ever-working spark of -the Universal, in the disappointments and baffled attempts of each, all -are disposed to [admit] the _jus extrinsecum_ of Spinoza, and recognise -that reason as the highest which may not be understood as the best, but -of which the concrete possession is felt to be the strongest. Then come -society, habit, education, misery, intrigue, oppression, then -_revolution_, and the circle begins anew. Each man will universalise his -notions, and, yet, each is variously finite. To _reconcile_, therefore, -is truly the work of the inspired! This is the true _Atonement_--that -is, to reconcile the struggles of the infinitely various finite with the -_permanent_. - - -[Sidenote: A MEASURE IN SELF-REPROOF] - -Do not be too much discouraged, if any virtue _should_ be mixed, in your -consciousness, with affectation and imperfect sincerity, and some -vanity. Disapprove of this, and continue the practice of the good -feeling, even though mixed, and it will _gradually_ purify itself. -_Probatum est_. Disapprove, be _ashamed_ of the thought, of its always -continuing thus, but do not harshly quarrel with your present self, for -all virtue subsists in and by pleasure. S. T. C. Sunday evening, October -14, 1804. - -But a great deal of this is constitutional. That constitution which -predisposes to certain virtues, the [Greek: Dôron Theôn], has this -[Greek: temenos Nemeseôs] in it. It is the dregs of sympathy, and while -we are _weak_ and dependent on each other, and each is forced to think -often for himself, sympathy will have its dregs, and the strongest, who -have least of these, have the dregs of other virtues to strain off. - - -[Sidenote: THE OPERA] - -All the objections to the opera are equally applicable to tragedy and -comedy without music, and all proceed on the false principle that -theatrical representations are _copies_ of nature, whereas they are -imitations. - - -[Sidenote: A SALVE FOR WOUNDED VANITY] - -When you are harassed, disquieted, and have little dreams of resentment, -and mock triumphs in consequence of the clearest perceptions of unkind -treatment and strange misconceptions and illogicalities, palpably from -bad passion, in any person connected with you, suspect a sympathy in -yourself with some of these bad passions--vanity, for instance. Though a -sense of wounded justice is possible, nay, probably, forms a part of -your uneasy feelings, yet this of itself would yield, at the first -moment of reflection, to pity for the wretched state of a man too -untranquil and perpetually selfish to love anything for itself or -without some end of vanity or ambition--who detests all poetry, tosses -about in the impotence of desires disproportionate to his powers, and -whose whole history of his whole life is a tale of disappointment in -circumstances where the hope and pretension was always unwise, often -presumptuous and insolent. Surely an intuition of this restless and -no-end-having mood of mind would at once fill a hearer having no -sympathy with these passions with tender melancholy, virtuously mixed -with grateful unpharisaic self-complacency. But a patient _almost_, but -not quite, recovered from madness, yet on its confines, finds in the -notions of madness that which irritates and haunts and makes unhappy. - - -[Sidenote: OFFICIAL DISTRUST] - -Malta, Friday, Nov. 23, 1804. - -One of the heart-depressing habits and temptations of men in power, as -governors, &c., is to make _instruments_ of their fellow-creatures, and -the moment they find a man of honour and talents, instead of loving and -esteeming him, they wish to _use him_. Hence that self-betraying -side-and-down look of cunning; and they justify and inveterate the habit -by believing that every individual who approaches has selfish designs on -them. - - -[Sidenote: FOR THE "SOOTHER IN ABSENCE"] - -Days and weeks and months pass on, and now a year--and the sea, the sea, -and the breeze have their influences on me, and [so, too, has the -association with] good and sensible men. I feel a pleasure upon me, and -I am, to the outward view, cheerful, and have myself no distinct -consciousness of the contrary, for I use my faculties, not, indeed, at -once, but freely. But, oh! I am never happy, never deeply gladdened. I -know not--I have forgotten--what the _joy_ is of which the heart is -full, as of a deep and quiet fountain overflowing insensibly, or the -gladness of joy, when the fountain overflows ebullient. - - -The most common appearance in wintry weather is that of the sun under a -sharp, defined level line of a stormy cloud, that stretches one-third or -half round the circle of the horizon, thrice the height of the space -that intervenes between it and the horizon, which last is about half -again as broad as the sun. [At length] out comes the sun, a mass of -brassy light, himself lost and diffused in his [own] strong splendour. -Compare this with the beautiful summer _set_ of colours without cloud. - - -Even in the most tranquil dreams, one is much less a mere spectator -[than in reveries or day-dreams]. One seems always about to do, [to be] -suffering, or thinking or talking. I do not recollect [in dreams] that -state of feeling, so common when awake, of thinking on one subject and -looking at another; or [of looking] at a whole prospect, till at last, -perhaps, or by intervals, at least, you only look passively at the -prospect. - - -[Sidenote: MULTUM IN PARVO] - -At Dresden there is a cherry-stone engraved with eighty-five portraits. -Christ and the Twelve Apostles form one group, the table and supper all -drawn by the letters of the text--at once portraits and language. This -is a universal particular language--Roman Catholic language with a -vengeance. - - -The beautifully _white_ sails of the Mediterranean, so carefully, when -in port, put up into clean bags; and the interesting circumstance of the -Spéronara's sailing without a compass--by an obscure sense of time. - - -[Sidenote: THROUGH DOUBT TO FAITH] - -So far from deeming it, in a religious point of view, criminal to spread -doubts of God, immortality and virtue (that 3 = 1) in the minds of -individuals, I seem to see in it a duty--lest men by taking the _words_ -for granted never attain the feeling or the true _faith_. They only -forbear, that is, even to suspect that the idea is erroneous or the -communicators deceivers, but do not _believe_ the idea itself. Whereas -to _doubt_ has more of faith, nay even to disbelieve, than that blank -negation of all such thoughts and feelings which is the lot of the herd -of church-and-meeting-trotters. - - -[Sidenote: AN APOLOGY FOR COTTLE] - -The Holy Ghost, say the harmonists, left all the solecisms, Hebraisms, -and low Judaic prejudices as evidences of the credibility of the -Apostles. So, too, the Theophneusty left Cottle his Bristolisms, not to -take away the credit from him and give it to the Muses. - - -[Sidenote: FOR THE "SOOTHER IN ABSENCE"] - -His fine mind met vice and vicious thoughts by accident only, as a poet -running through terminations in the heat of composing a rhyme-poem on -the purest and best subjects, startles and half-vexedly turns away from -a foul or impure word. - - -The gracious promises and sweetnesses and aids of religion are alarming -and distressful to a trifling, light, fluttering gay child of fashion -and vanity, as its threats and reproaches and warnings--as a little bird -which fears as much when you come to give it food as when you come with -a desire to kill or imprison it. - - -That is a striking legend of Caracciolo and his floating corse, that -came to ask the King of Naples' pardon. - - -Final causes answer to why? not to how? and who ever supposed that they -did? - - -O those crinkled, ever-varying circles which the moonlight makes in the -not calm, yet not wavy sea! Quarantine, Malta, Saturday, Nov. 10, 1804. - - -[Sidenote: THE CREATIVE POWER OF WORDS AND IMAGES] - -Hard to express that sense of the analogy or likeness of a thing which -enables a symbol to represent it so that we think of the thing itself, -yet knowing that the thing is not present to us. Surely on this -universal fact of words and images depends, by more or less mediations, -the imitation, instead of the _copy_ which is illustrated, in very -nature Shaksperianised--that Proteus essence that could assume the very -form, but yet known and felt not to be the thing by that difference of -the substance which made every atom of the form another thing, that -likeness not identity--an exact web, every line of direction -miraculously the same, but the one worsted, the other silk. - - -[Sidenote: SHAKSPERE AND MALONE] - -Rival editors have recourse to necromancy to know from Shakspere himself -who of them is the fittest to edit and illustrate him. Describe the -meeting, the ceremonies of conjuration, the appearance of the spirit, -the effect on the rival invokers. When they have resumed courage, the -arbiter appointed by them asks the question. They listen, Malone leaps -up while the rest lay their heads at the same instant that the arbiter -re-echoes the words of the spirit, "Let Malone!" The spirit shudders, -then exclaims in the dread and angry utterance of the dead, "No! no! Let -me alone, I said, inexorable boobies!" - -O that eternal bricker-up of Shakspere! Registers, memorandum-books--and -that Bill, Jack and Harry, Tom, Walter and Gregory, Charles, Dick and -Jim, lived at that house, but that nothing more is known of them. But, -oh! the importance when half-a-dozen players'-bills can be made to -stretch through half-a-hundred or more of pages, though there is not one -word in them that by any force can be made either to illustrate the -times or life or writings of Shakspere, or, indeed, of any time. And, -yet, no edition but this gentleman's name _burs_ upon it--_burglossa_ -with a vengeance. Like the genitive plural of a Greek adjective, it is -Malone, Malone, Malone, [Greek: Malôn, Malôn, Malôn]. - -[Edmund Malone's _Variorum_ edition of Shakspere was published in 1790.] - - -[Sidenote: OF THE FROWARDNESS OF WOMAN December 11, 1804] - -It is a remark that I have made many times, and many times, I guess, -shall repeat, that women are infinitely fonder of clinging to and -beating about, hanging upon and keeping up, and reluctantly letting fall -any doleful or painful or unpleasant subject, than men of the same class -and rank. - - -[Sidenote: NE QUID NIMIS] - -A young man newly arrived in the West Indies, who happened to be sitting -next to a certain Captain Reignia, observed by way of introducing a -conversation, "It is a very fine day, sir!" "Yes, sir," was the abrupt -reply, "and be damned to it; it is never otherwise in this damned -rascally climate." - - -[Sidenote: WE ASK NOT WHENCE BUT WHAT AND WHITHER] - -I addressed a butterfly on a pea-blossom thus, "Beautiful Psyche, soul -of a blossom, that art visiting and hovering o'er thy former friends -whom thou hast left!" Had I forgot the caterpillar? or did I dream like -a mad metaphysician that the caterpillar's hunger for plants was -self-love, recollection, and a lust that in its next state refined -itself into love? Dec. 12, 1804. - - -[Sidenote: ANALOGY] - -Different means to the same end seem to constitute analogy. Seeing and -touching are analogous senses with respect to magnitude, figure, -&c.--they would, and to a certain extent do, supply each other's place. -The air-vessels of fish and of insects are analogous to lungs--the end -the same, however different the means. No one would say, "Lungs are -analogous to lungs," and it seems to me either inaccurate or involving -some true conception obscurely, when we speak of planets by analogy of -ours--for here, knowing nothing but likeness, we presume the difference -from the remoteness and difficulty, in the vulgar apprehension, of -considering those pin-points as worlds. So, likewise, instead of the -phrase "analogy of the past," applied to historical reasoning, nine -times out of ten I should say, "by the example of the past." This may -appear verbal trifling, but "_animadverte quam sit ab improprietate -verborum pronum hominibus prolabi in errores circa res_." In short, -analogy always implies a difference in kind and not merely in degree. -There is an analogy between dimness and numbness and a certain state of -the sense of hearing correspondent to these, which produces confusion -with _magnification_, for which we have no name. But between light green -and dark green, between a mole and a lynceus, there is a gradation, no -analogy. - -[Sidenote: COROLLARY] - -Between beasts and men, when the same actions are performed by both, are -the means analogous or different only in degree? That is the question! -The sameness of the end and the equal fitness of the means prove no -identity of means. I can only read, but understand no arithmetic. Yet, -by Napier's tables or the _House-keepers' Almanack_, I may even arrive -at the conclusion quicker than a tolerably expert mathematician. Yet, -still, reading and reckoning are utterly different things. - - -[Sidenote: THOMAS WEDGWOOD AND REIMARUS] - -In Reimarus on _The Instincts of Animals_, Tom Wedgwood's -ground-principle of the influx of memory on perception is fully and -beautifully detailed. - -["Observations Moral and Philosophical on the Instinct of Animals, their -Industry and their Manners," by Herman Samuel Reimarus, was published in -1770. See _Biographia Literaria_, chapter vi. and _Note_, by Mrs. H. N. -Coleridge in the Appendix, _Coleridge's Works_, Harper & Brothers, iii. -225, 717.] - - -[Sidenote: HINC ILLA MARGINALIA] - -It is often said that books are companions. They are so, dear, very dear -companions! But I often, when I read a book that delights me on the -whole, feel a pang that the author is not present, that I cannot -_object_ to him this and that, express my sympathy and gratitude for -this part and mention some facts that self-evidently overset a second, -start a doubt about a third, or confirm and carry [on] a fourth thought. -At times I become restless, for my nature is very social. - - -[Sidenote: CORRUPTIO OPTIMI PESSIMA] - -"Well" (says Lady Ball), "the Catholic religion is better than none." -Why, to be sure, it is called a religion, but the question is, Is it a -religion? Sugar of lead! better than no sugar! Put oil of vitriol into -my salad--well, better than no oil at all! Or a fellow vends a poison -under the name of James' powders--well, we must get the best we -can--better that than none! So did not our noble ancestors reason or -feel, or we should now be slaves and even as the Sicilians are at this -day, or worse, for even they have been made less foolish, in spite of -themselves, by others' wisdom. - - -[Sidenote: REIMARUS AND THE "INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS"] - -I have read with wonder and delight that passage of Reimarus in which he -speaks of the immense multitude of plants, and the curious, regular -_choice_ of different herbivorous animals with respect to them, and the -following pages in which he treats of the pairing of insects and the -equally wonderful processes of egg-laying and so forth. All in motion! -the sea-fish to the shores and rivers--the land crab to the sea-shore! I -would fain describe all the creation thus agitated by the one or other -of the three instincts--self-preservation, childing, and -child-preservation. Set this by Darwin's theory of the maternal -instinct--O mercy! the blindness of the man! and it is imagination, -forsooth! that misled him--too much poetry in his philosophy! this -abject deadness of all that sense of the obscure and indefinite, this -superstitious fetish-worship of lazy or fascinated fancy! O this, -indeed, deserves to be dwelt on. - - -Think of all this as an absolute revelation, a real presence of Deity, -and compare it with historical traditionary religion. There are two -revelations--the material and the moral--and the former is not to be -seen but by the latter. As St. Paul has so well observed: "By worldly -wisdom no man ever arrived at God;" but having seen Him by the moral -sense, then we _understand_ the outward world. Even as with books, no -book of itself teaches a language in the first instance; but having by -sympathy of soul learnt it, we then understand the book--that is, the -_Deus minor_ in His work. - - -The _hirschkäfer_ (stag-beetle) in its worm state makes its bed-chamber, -prior to its metamorphosis, half as long as itself. Why? There was a -stiff horn turned under its belly, which in the fly state must project -and harden, and this required exactly that length. - - -The sea-snail creeps out of its house, which, thus hollowed, lifts him -aloft, and is his boat and cork jacket; the Nautilus, additionally, -spreads a thin skin as a sail. - - -All creatures obey the great game-laws of Nature, and fish with nets of -such meshes as permit many to escape, and preclude the taking of many. -So two races are saved, the one by taking part, and the other by part -not being taken. - - -[Sidenote: ENTOMOLOGY VERSUS ONTOLOGY] - -Wonderful, perplexing divisibility of life! It is related by D. Unzer, -an authority wholly to be relied on, that an _ohrwurm_ (earwig) cut in -half ate its own hinder part! Will it be the reverse with Great Britain -and America? The head of the rattlesnake severed from the body bit it -and squirted out its poison, as is related by Beverley in his History of -Virginia. Lyonnet in his Insect. Theol. tells us that he tore a wasp in -half and, three days after, the fore-half bit whatever was presented to -it of its former food, and the hind-half darted out its sting at being -touched. Stranger still, a turtle has been known to live six months with -his head off, and to wander about, yea, six hours after its heart and -intestines (all but the lungs) were taken out! How shall we think of -this compatibly with the monad soul? If I say, what has spirit to do -with space?--what odd dreams it would suggest! or is every animal a -republic _in se_? or is there one Breeze of Life, "at once the soul of -each, and God of all?" Is it not strictly analogous to generation, and -no more contrary to unity than it? But IT? Aye! there's the twist in the -logic. Is not the reproduction of the lizard a complete generation? O it -is easy to dream, and, surely, better of these things than of a £20,000 -prize in the lottery, or of a place at Court. Dec. 13, 1804. - - -[Sidenote: FOR THE "SOOTHER IN ABSENCE"] - -To trace the if not absolute birth, yet the growth and endurancy of -language, from the mother talking to the child at her breast. O what a -subject for some happy moment of deep feeling and strong imagination! - - -Of the Quintetta in the Syracuse opera and the pleasure of the -voices--one and not one, they leave, seek, pursue, oppose, fight with, -strengthen, annihilate each other, awake, enliven, soothe, flatter and -embrace each other again, till at length they die away in one tone. -There is no sweeter image of wayward yet fond lovers, of seeking and -finding, of the love-quarrel, and the making-up, of the losing and the -yearning regret, of the doubtful, the complete recognition, and of the -total melting union. Words are not interpreters, but fellow-combatants. - - -Title for a Medical Romance:--The adventures, rivalry, warfare and final -union and partnership of Dr. Hocus and Dr. Pocus. - - -Idly talk they who speak of poets as mere indulgers of fancy, -imagination, superstition, etc. They are the bridlers by delight, the -purifiers; they that combine all these with reason and order--the true -protoplasts--Gods of Love who tame the chaos. - - -To deduce instincts from obscure recollections of a pre-existing -state--I have often thought of it. "Ey!" I have said, when I have seen -certain tempers and actions in Hartley, "that is I in my future state." -So I think, oftentimes, that my children are my soul--that multitude and -division are not [O mystery!] necessarily subversive of unity. I am sure -that two very different meanings, if not more, lurk in the word One. - - -The drollest explanation of instinct is that of Mylius, who attributes -every act to pain, and all the wonderful webs and envelopes of spiders, -caterpillars, etc., absolutely to fits of colic or paroxysms of dry -belly-ache! - - -This Tarantula-dance of repetitions and vertiginous argumentation _in -circulo_, begun in imposture and self-consummated in madness! - - -While the whole planet (_quoad_ its Lord or, at least, Lord-Lieutenancy) -is in stir and bustle, why should not I keep in time with the tune, and, -like old Diogenes, roll my tub about? - - -I cannot too often remember that to be deeply interested and to be -highly satisfied are not always commensurate. Apply this to the -affecting and yet unnatural passages of the _Stranger_ or of _John -Bull_, and to the finest passages in Shakspere, such as the death of -Cleopatra or Hamlet. - - -[Sidenote: A SUNDOG Dec. 15, 1804] - -Saw the limb of a rainbow footing itself on the sea at a small apparent -distance from the shore, a thing of itself--no substrate cloud or even -mist visible--but the distance glimmered through it as through a thin -semi-transparent hoop. - - -[Sidenote: THE SQUARE, THE CIRCLE, THE PYRAMID] - -To be and to act, two in Intellect (that mother of orderly multitude, -and half-sister of Wisdom and Madness) but one in essence = to rest, and -to move = [sq] and a [cir]! and out of the infinite combinations of -these, from the more and the less, now of one now of the other, all -pleasing figures and the sources of all pleasure arise. But the pyramid, -that base of stedfastness that rises, yet never deserts itself nor can, -approaches to the [cir]. Sunday. Midnight. Malta. December 16th, 1804. - - -[Sidenote: THE PYRAMID IN ART] - -I can make out no other affinity [in the pyramid] to the circle but by -taking its evanescence as the central point, and so, having thus gained -a melting of the radii in the circumference [by proceeding to] _look_ it -into the object. Extravagance! Why? Does not everyone do this in looking -at any conspicuous three stars together? does not every one see by the -inner vision, a triangle? However, this is in art; but the prototype in -nature is, indeed, loveliness. In Nature there are no straight lines, or -[such straight lines as there are] have the soul of curves, from -activity and positive rapid energy. Or, whether the line seem curve or -straight, yet _here_, in nature, is motion--motion in its most -significant form. It is motion in that form which has been chosen to -express motion in general, hieroglyphical from pre-eminence, [and by -this very pre-eminence, in the particular instance, made significant of -motion in its totality]. Hence, though it chance that a line in nature -should be perfectly straight, there is no need here of any curve whose -effect is that of embleming motion and counteracting actual solidity by -that emblem. For here the line [in contra-distinction to the line in -art] is actual motion, and therefore a balancing _Figurite_ of rest and -solidity. But I will study the wood-fire this evening in the Palace. - - -[Sidenote: Wednesday Night, 11 o'clock, December 19] - -I see now that the eye refuses to decide whether it be surface or -convexity, for the exquisite oneness of the flame makes even its angles -so different from the angles of tangible substances. Its exceeding -oneness added to its very subsistence in motion is the very _soul_ of -the loveliest curve--it does not need its body as it were. Its sharpest -point is, however, rounded, and besides it is cased within its own -penumbra. - - -[Sidenote: FOR THE "SOOTHER IN ABSENCE" Friday Morning, Dec. 21, 8 -o'clock] - -How beautiful a circumstance, the improvement of the flower, from the -root up to that crown of its life and labours, that bridal-chamber of -its beauty and its two-fold love, the nuptial and the parental--the -womb, the cradle, and the nursery of the garden! - - -_Quisque sui faber_--a pretty simile this would make to a young lady -producing beauty by moral feeling. - - -Nature may be personified as the [Greek: polymêchanos erganê], an ever -industrious Penelope, for ever unravelling what she has woven, for ever -weaving what she has unravelled. - - -[Sidenote: THE MEDITERRANEAN] - -Oh, said I, as I looked at the blue, yellow, green and purple-green sea, -with all its hollows and swells, and cut-glass surfaces--oh, what an -_ocean_ of lovely forms! And I was vexed, teased that the sentence -sounded like a play of words! _That_ it was not--the mind within me was -struggling to express the marvellous distinctness and unconfounded -personality of each of the million millions of forms, and yet the -individual unity in which they subsisted. - - -A brisk gale and the foam that peopled the _alive_ sea, most -interestingly combined with the number of white sea-gulls, that, -repeatedly, it seemed as if the foam-spit had taken life and wing and -had flown up--the white precisely-same-colour birds rose up so close by -the ever-perishing white-water wavehead, that the eye was unable to -detect the illusion which the mind delighted to indulge in. O that sky, -that soft, blue, mighty arch resting on the mountain or solid sea-like -plain--what an awful omneity in unity! I know no other perfect union of -the sublime with the beautiful, so that they should be felt, that is, -at the same minute, though by different faculties, and yet, each faculty -be predisposed, by itself, to receive the specific modifications from -the other. To the eye it is an inverted goblet, the inside of a sapphire -basin, perfect beauty in shape and colour. To the mind, it is immensity; -but even the eye feels as if it were [able] to look through with [a] dim -sense of the non-resistance--it is not exactly the feeling given to the -organ by solid and limited things, [but] the eye feels that the -limitation is in its own power, not in the object. But [hereafter] to -pursue this in the manner of the old Hamburg poet [Klopstock]. - - -[Sidenote: I WILL LIFT UP MINE EYES TO THE HILLS] - -One travels along with the lines of a mountain. Years ago I wanted to -make Wordsworth sensible of this. How fine is Keswick vale! Would I -repose, my soul lies and is quiet upon the broad level vale. Would it -act? it darts up into the mountain-top like a kite, and like a -chamois-goat runs along the ridge--or like a boy that makes a sport on -the road of running along a wall or narrow fence! - - -[Sidenote: FORM AND FEELING] - -One of the most noticeable and fruitful facts in psychology is the -modification of the same feeling by difference of form. The Heaven lifts -up my soul, the sight of the ocean seems to widen it. We feel the same -force at work, but the difference, whether in mind or body that we -should feel in actual travelling horizontally or in direct ascent, -_that_ we feel in fancy. For what are our feelings of this kind but a -motion imagined, [together] with the feelings that would accompany that -motion, [but] less distinguished, more blended, more rapid, more -confused, and, thereby, co-adunated? Just as white is the very emblem of -one in being the confusion of all. - - -[Sidenote: VERBUM SAPIENTIBUS] - -Mem.--Not to hastily abandon and kick away the means after the end is or -seems to be accomplished. So have I, in blowing out the paper or match -with which I have lit a candle, blown out the candle at the same -instant. - - -[Sidenote: THE CONTINUITY OF SENSATIONS] - -How opposite to nature and the fact to talk of the "one moment" of Hume, -of our whole being an aggregate of successive single sensations! Who -ever felt a single sensation? Is not every one at the same moment -conscious that there co-exist a thousand others, a darker shade, or less -light, even as when I fix my attention on a white house or a grey bare -hill or rather long ridge that runs out of sight each way (how often I -want the German _unübersekbar_!) [untranslatable]--the pretended -sight-sensation, is it anything more than the light-point in every -picture either of nature or of a good painter? and, again, -subordinately, in every component part of the picture? And what is a -moment? Succession with interspace? Absurdity! It is evidently only the -_icht-punct_ in the indivisible undivided duration. - - -See yonder rainbow strangely preserving its form on broken clouds, with -here a bit out, here a bit in, yet still a rainbow--even as you might -place bits of coloured ribbon at distances, so as to preserve the form -of a bow to the mind. Dec. 25, 1804. - - -[Sidenote: HIS CONVERSATION, A NIMIETY OF IDEAS, NOT OF WORDS] - -There are two sorts of talkative fellows whom it would be injurious to -confound, and I, S. T. Coleridge, am the latter. The first sort is of -those who use five hundred words more than needs to express an -idea--that is not my case. Few men, I will be bold to say, put more -meaning into their words than I, or choose them more deliberately and -discriminately. The second sort is of those who use five hundred more -ideas, images, reasons, &c., than there is any need of to arrive at -their object, till the only object arrived at is that the mind's eye of -the bystander is dazzled with colours succeeding so rapidly as to leave -one vague impression that there has been a great blaze of colours all -about something. Now this is my case, and a grievous fault it is. My -illustrations swallow up my thesis. I feel too intensely the -omnipresence of all in each, platonically speaking; or, psychologically, -my brain-fibres, or the spiritual light which abides in the -brain-marrow, as visible light appears to do in sundry rotten mackerel -and other _smashy_ matters, is of too general an affinity with all -things, and though it perceives the _difference_ of things, yet is -eternally pursuing the likenesses, or, rather, that which is common -[between them]. Bring me two things that seem the very same, and then I -am quick enough [not only] to show the difference, even to -hair-splitting, but to go on from circle to circle till I break against -the shore of my hearers' patience, or have my concentricals dashed to -nothing by a snore. That is my ordinary mishap. At Malta, however, no -one can charge me with one or the other. I have earned the general -character of being a quiet well-meaning man, rather dull indeed! and who -would have thought that he had been a _poet_! "O, a very wretched -poetaster, ma'am! As to the reviews, 'tis well known he half-ruined -himself in paying cleverer fellows than himself to write them," &c. - - -[Sidenote: THE EMBRYONIC SOUL] - -How far might one imagine all the theory of association out of a system -of growth, by applying to the brain and soul what we know of an embryo? -One tiny particle combines with another its like, and, so, lengthens and -thickens, and this is, at once, memory and increasing vividness of -impression. One might make a very amusing allegory of an embryo soul up -to birth! Try! it is promising! You have not above three hundred volumes -to write before you come to it, and as you write, perhaps, a volume once -in ten years, you have ample time. - -My dear fellow! never be ashamed of scheming--you can't think of living -less than 4000 years, and that would nearly suffice for your present -schemes. To be sure, if they go on in the same ratio to the performance, -then a small difficulty arises; but never mind! look at the bright side -always and die in a dream! Oh! - - -[Sidenote: OF A NEW HYPOTHESIS] - -The evil effect of a new hypothesis or even of a new nomenclature is, -that many minds which had familiarised themselves to the old one, and -were riding on the road of discovery accustomed to their horse, if put -on a new animal, lose time in learning how to sit him; while the others, -looking too stedfastly at a few facts which the jeweller Hypothesis had -set in a perfectly beautiful whole, forget to dig for more, though -inhabitants of a Golconda. However, it has its advantages too, and these -have been ably pointed out. It excites contradiction, and is thence a -stimulus to new experiments to _support_, and to a more severe -repetition of these experiments and of other new ones to _confute_ -[arguments pro and con]. And, besides, one must alloy severe truth with -a little fancy, in order to mint it into common coin. - - -[Sidenote: HIS INDEBTEDNESS TO GERMAN PHILOSOPHY] - -In the preface of my metaphysical works, I should say--"Once for all, -read Kant, Fichte, &c., and then you will trace, or, if you are on the -hunt, track me." Why, then, not acknowledge your obligations step by -step? Because I could not do so in a multitude of glaring resemblances -without a lie, for they had been mine, formed and full-formed, before I -had ever heard of these writers, because to have fixed on the particular -instances in which I have really been indebted to these writers would -have been hard, if possible, to me who read for truth and -self-satisfaction, and not to make a book, and who always rejoiced and -was jubilant when I found my own ideas well expressed by others--and, -lastly, let me say, because (I am proud, perhaps, but) I seem to know -that much of the _matter_ remains my own, and that the _soul_ is mine. I -fear not him for a critic who can confound a fellow-thinker with a -compiler. - - -[Sidenote: THE METAPHYSICIAN AT BAY] - -Good heavens! that there should be anything at all, and not nothing. Ask -the bluntest faculty that pretends to reason, and, if indeed he have -felt and reasoned, he must feel that something is to be sought after out -of the vulgar track of Change-Alley speculation. - -If my researches are shadowy, what, in the name of reason, are you? or -do you resign all pretence to reason, and consider yourself--nay, even -that in a contradiction--as a passive [cir] among Nothings? - - -[Sidenote: MEANS TO ENDS] - -How flat and common-place! O that it were in my heart, nerves, and -muscles! O that it were the _prudential_ soul of all I love, of all who -deserve to be loved, in every proposed action to ask yourself, To what -end is this? and how is this the means? and not the means to something -else foreign to or abhorrent from my purpose? _Distinct means to -distinct ends!_ With friends and beloved ones follow the heart. Better -be deceived twenty times than suspect one-twentieth of once; but with -strangers, or enemies, or in a quarrel, whether in the world's -squabbles, as Dr. Stoddart's and Dr. Sorel in the Admiralty Court at -Malta; or in moral businesses, as mine with Southey or Lloyd (O pardon -me, dear and honoured Southey, that I put such a name by the side of -yours....)--in all those cases, write your letter, disburthen yourself, -and when you have done it--even as when you have pared, sliced, -vinegared, oiled, peppered and salted your plate of cucumber, you are -directed to smell it, and then throw it out of the window--so, dear -friend, vinegar, pepper and salt your letter--your cucumber argument, -that is, cool reasoning previously sauced with passion and -sharpness--then read it, eat it, drink it, smell it, with eyes and ears -(a small catachresis but never mind), and then throw it into the -fire--unless you can put down in three or four sentences (I cannot allow -more than one side of a sheet of paper) the _distinct end_ for which you -conceive this letter (or whatever it be) to be the _distinct means_! How -trivial! Would to God it were only _habitual_! O what is sadder than -that the _crambe bis cocta_ of the understanding should be and remain a -foreign dish to the efficient _will_--that the best and loftiest -precepts of wisdom should be trivial, and the worst and lowest modes of -folly habitual. - - -[Sidenote: VERBAL CONCEITS] - -I have learnt, sometimes not _at all_, and seldom _harshly_, to chide -those conceits of words which are analogous to sudden fleeting -affinities of mind. Even, as in a dance, you touch and join and off -again, and rejoin your partner that leads down with you the dance, in -spite of these occasional off-starts--for they, too, not merely conform -to, but are of and in and help to form the delicious harmony. Shakspere -is not a thousandth part so faulty as the [scir][scir][scir] -believe him. "Thus him that over-rul'd I over-sway'd," etc., etc. I -noticed this to that bubbling ice-spring of cold-hearted, mad-headed -fanaticism, the late Dr. Geddes, in the "_Heri vidi fragilem frangi, -hodie mortalem mori_." - -[Dr. Alexander Geddes, 1737-1802, was, _inter alia_, author of a revised -translation of the Scriptures.] - - -[Sidenote: THE BRIGHT BLUE SEA] - -How often I have occasion to notice with pure delight the depth of the -exceeding blueness of the Mediterranean from my window! It is often, -indeed, purple; but I am speaking of its blueness--a perfect blue, so -very pure an one. The sea is like a night-sky; and but for its -_planities_, it were as if the night-sky were a thing that turned round -and lay in the day-time under the paler Heaven. And it is on this -expanse that the vessels have the fine white dazzling cotton sails. - - -[Sidenote: THE BIRTH OF THE IDEA] - -Centuries before their mortal incarnation, Jove was wont to manifest to -the gods the several creations as they emerged from the divine ideal. -Now it was reported in heaven that an unusually fair creation of a woman -was emerging, and Venus, fearful that her son should become enamoured as -of yore with Psyche (what time he wandered alone, his bow unslung, and -using his darts only to cut out her name on rocks and trees, or, at -best, to shoot hummingbirds and birds of Paradise to make -feather-chaplets for her hair, and the world, meanwhile, grown loveless, -hardened into the Iron Age), entreats Jove to secrete this form [of -perilous beauty]. But Cupid, who had heard the report, and fondly -expected a re-manifestation of Psyche, hid himself in the hollow of the -sacred oak beneath which the Father of Gods had withdrawn as to an -unapproachable adytum, and beheld the Idea emerging in its _First -Glory_. Forthwith the wanton was struck blind by the splendour ere yet -the blaze had defined itself with form, and now his arrows strike but -vaguely. - - -[Sidenote: THE CONVERSION OF CERES] - -I have somewhere read, or I have dreamt, a wild tale of Ceres' loss of -Proserpine, and her final recovery of her daughter by means of Christ -when He descended into hell, at which time she met Him and abjured all -worship for the future. - -It were a quaint mythological conceit to feign that the gods of Greece -and Rome were some of the _best_ of the fallen spirits, and that of -their number _Apollo_, Mars, and the Muses were converted to -Christianity, and became different saints. - - -[Sidenote: AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARD] - -The ribbed flame--its snatches of impatience, that half-seem, and only -_seem_ that half, to baffle its upward rush--the eternal unity of -individualities whose essence is in their distinguishableness, even as -thought and _fancies_ in the mind; the points of so many cherubic swords -snatched back, but never discouraged, still fountaining upwards:--flames -self-snatched up heavenward, if earth supply the fuel, heaven the dry -light air--themselves still making the current that will fan and spread -them--yet all their force in vain, if of itself--and light dry air, -heaped fuel, fanning breeze as idle, if no inward spark lurks there, or -lurks unkindled. Such a spark, O man! is thy Free Will--the star whose -beams are Virtue! - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -_1805_ - - Alone, alone, all, all alone, - Alone on a wide, wide sea! - And never a saint took pity on - My soul in agony. - - S. T. C. - - -[Sidenote: THE SENSE OF MAGNITUDE Tuesday, Jan. 15, 1805] - -This evening there was the most perfect and the brightest halo circling -the roundest and brightest moon I ever beheld. So bright was the halo, -so compact, so entire a circle, that it gave the whole of its area, the -moon itself included, the appearance of a solid opaque body, an enormous -planet. It was as if this planet had a circular trough of some -light-reflecting fluid for its rim (that is the halo) and its centre -(that is the moon) a small circular basin of some fluid that still more -copiously reflected, or that even emitted light; and as if the -interspatial area were somewhat equally substantial but sullen. Thence I -have found occasion to meditate on the nature of the sense of magnitude -and its absolute dependence on the idea of _substance_; the consequent -difference between magnitude and spaciousness, the dependence of the -idea on double-touch, and thence to evolve all our feelings and ideas of -magnitude, magnitudinal sublimity, &c., from a scale of our own bodies. -For why, if form constituted the sense, that is, if it were pure vision, -as a perceptive sense abstracted from _feeling_ in the organ of vision, -why do I seek for mountains, when in the flattest countries the clouds -present so many and so much more romantic and _spacious_ forms, and the -coal-fire so many, so much more varied and lovely forms? And whence -arises the pleasure from musing on the latter? Do I not, more or less -consciously, fancy myself a Lilliputian to whom these would be -mountains, and so, by this factitious scale, make them mountains, my -pleasure being consequently playful, a voluntary poem in hieroglyphics -or picture-writing--"_phantoms_ of sublimity," which I continue to know -to be _phantoms_? And form itself, is not its main agency exerted in -individualising the thing, making it _this_ and _that_, and thereby -facilitating the shadowy measurement of it by the scale of my own body? - -Yon long, not unvaried, ridge of hills, that runs out of sight each way, -it is _spacious_, and the pleasure derivable from it is from its -_running_, its _motion_, its assimilation to action; and here the scale -is taken from my life and soul, and not from my body. Space is the -Hebrew name for God, and it is the most perfect image of _soul, pure -soul_, being to us nothing but unresisted action. Whenever action is -resisted, limitation begins--and limitation is the first constituent of -body--the more omnipresent it is in a given space, the more that space -is _body_ or matter--and thus all body necessarily presupposes soul, -inasmuch as all resistance presupposes action. Magnitude, therefore, is -the intimate blending, the most perfect union, through its whole sphere, -in every minutest part of it, of action and resistance to action. It is -spaciousness in which space is filled up--that is, as we well say, -transmitted by incorporate accession, not destroyed. In all limited -things, that is, in _all forms_, it is at least fantastically stopped, -and, thus, from the positive _grasp_ to the mountain, from the mountain -to the cloud, from the cloud to the blue depth of sky, which, as on the -top of Etna, in a serene atmosphere, seems to go _behind_ the sun, all -is _graduation_, that precludes division, indeed, but not distinction; -and he who endeavours to overturn a distinction by showing that there is -no chasm, by the old sophism of the _cumulus_ or the horse's tail, is -still diseased with the _formication_,[B] the (what is the nosological -name of it? the hairs or dancing infinites of black specks seeming -always to be before the eye), the araneosis of corpuscular -materialism.--S. T. C. - - -[Sidenote: STRAY THOUGHTS FOR THE "SOOTHER IN ABSENCE"] - -The least things, how they evidence the superiority of English artisans! -Even the Maltese wafers, for instance, that stick to your mouth and -fingers almost so as to make it impossible to get them off without -squeezing them into a little pellet, and yet will not stick to the -paper. - - -Everyone of tolerable education feels the _imitability_ of Dr. Johnson's -and other-such's style, the inimitability of Shakspere's, &c. Hence, I -believe, arises the partiality of thousands for Johnson. They can -imagine _themselves_ doing the same. Vanity is at the bottom of it. The -number of imitators proves this in some measure. - - -Of the feelings of the English at the sight of a convoy from England. -Man cannot be selfish--that part of me (my beloved) which is distant, in -space, excites the same feeling as the "ich"[C] distant from me in -time. My friends are indeed my soul! - - -[Sidenote: Jan. 22, 1805.] - -I had not moved from my seat, and wanted the stick of sealing-wax, -nearly a whole one, for another letter. I could not find it, it was not -on the table--had it dropped on the ground? I searched and searched -everywhere, my pockets, my fobs, impossible places--literally it had -vanished, and where was it? It had stuck to my _elbow_, I having leaned -upon it ere it had grown cold! A curious accident, and in no way similar -to that of the butcher and his steel in his mouth which he was seeking -for. Mine was true accident. - - -The maxims which govern the Courts of Admiralty, their "betwixt and -between" of positive law and the dictates of right reason, resemble the -half-way _inter jus et æquitatem_ of Roman jurisprudence. It were worth -while to examine the advantages of this as far as it is a real -_modification_, its disadvantages as far as it appears a _jumble_. - - -Seeing a nice bed of glowing embers with one junk of firewood well -placed, like the remains of an old edifice, and another well-nigh -mouldered one corresponding to it, I felt an impulse to put on three -pieces of wood that exactly completed the perishable architecture, -though it was eleven o'clock, though I was that instant going to bed, -and there could be, in common ideas, no possible use in it. Hence I seem -(for I write not having yet gone to bed) to suspect that this disease of -totalising, of perfecting, may be the bottom impulse of many, many -actions, in which it never is brought forward as an avowed or even -agnised as a conscious motive. - -Mem.--to collect facts for a comparison between a _wood_ and a _coal_ -fire, as to sights and sounds and bodily feeling. - - -I have read somewhere of a sailor who dreamt that an encounter with the -enemy was about to take place, and that he should discover cowardice -during action. Accordingly he awakes his brother the Captain, and bids -him prepare for an engagement. At daybreak a ship is discovered on the -horizon and the sailor, mindful of his dream, procures himself to be -tied to a post. At the close of the day he is released unwounded but -dead from fright. Apply this incident to Miss Edgeworth's Tales, and all -similar attempts to cure faults by detailed forewarnings, which leave on -the similarly faulty an impression of fatality that extinguishes hope. - - -What precedes to the voice follows to the eye, as 000.1 and 100. A, B, -C--were they men, you would say that "C" went first, but being letters, -things of voice and ear in their original, we say that "A" goes first. - - -There are many men who, following, made 1 = 1000, being placed at head, -become useless cyphers, mere finery for form's sake. - - -[Sidenote: Feb. 1, 1805, Friday, Malta] - -Of the millions that use the pen, how many (query) understand the story -of this machine, the action of the slit, eh? I confess, ridiculous as it -must appear to those who do understand it, that I have not been able to -answer the question off-hand to myself, having only this moment thought -of it. - - -[Sidenote: Feb. 3, 1805] - -The gentlest form of Death, a Sylphid Death, passed by, beheld a -sleeping baby--became, Narcissus-like, enamoured of its own self in the -sweet counterfeit, seized it and carried it off as a mirror close by the -green Paradise--but the reviving air awakened the babe, and 'twas death -that died at the sudden loss. - - -[Sidenote: THE FRENCH LANGUAGE AND POETRY Feb. 4, 1805] - -I cannot admit that any language can be unfit for poetry, or that there -is any language in which a divinely inspired architect may not sustain -the lofty edifice of verse on its two pillars of sublimity and pathos. -Yet I have heard Frenchmen, nay, even Englishmen, assert that of the -German, which contains perhaps an hundred passages equal to the-- - - Und ein Gott ist, ein heiliger Wille lebt, - Wie auch der menschliche wanke;-- - -and I have heard both German and Englishmen (and these, too, men of true -feeling and genius, and so many of them that such company of my betters -makes me not ashamed to the having myself been guilty of this injustice) -assert that the French language is insusceptible of poetry in its higher -and purer sense, of poetry which excites emotion not merely creates -amusement, which demands continuous admiration, not regular recurrence -of conscious surprise, and the effect of which is love and joy. -Unfortunately the manners, religion and government of France, and the -circumstances of its emergence from the polyarchy of feudal barony, have -given a bad taste to the Parisians--so bad a one as doubtless to have -mildewed many an opening blossom. I cannot say that I know and can name -any one French writer that can be placed among the greater poets, but -when I read the inscription over the Chartreuse-- - - C'est ici que la Mort et la Verité - Elevent leurs flambeaux terribles; - C'est de cette demeure au monde inaccessible - Que l'on passe à l'Eternité - -I seem to feel that if France had been for ages a Protestant nation, and -a Milton had been born in it, the French language would not have -precluded the production of a "Paradise Lost," though it might, perhaps, -that of a Hamlet or a Lear. - - -[Sidenote: THE ABSTRACT SELF On Friday night, Feb. 8, 1805] - -On Friday Night, 8th Feb. 1805, my feeling, in sleep, of exceeding great -love for my infant, seen by me in the dream!--yet so as it might be -Sara, Derwent, or Berkley, and still it was an individual babe and mine. - - "All look or likeness caught from earth, - All accident of kin or birth, - Had pass'd away. There seem'd no trace - Of aught upon her brighten'd face, - Upraised beneath the rifted stone, - Save of one spirit all her own; - She, she herself, and only she, - Shone through her body visibly." - - _Poetical Works_, 1893, p. 172. - -This abstract self is, indeed, in its nature a Universal personified, as -Life, Soul, Spirit, etc. Will not this _prove_ it to be a _deeper_ -feeling, and of such intimate affinity with ideas, so as to modify them -and become one with them; whereas the appetites and the feelings of -revenge and anger co-exist with the ideas, not combine with them, and -alter the apparent effect of this form, not the forms themselves? -Certain modifications of fear seem to approach nearest to this -love-sense in its manner of acting. - - -Those whispers just as you have fallen asleep--what are they, and -whence? - - -[Sidenote: LITERA SCRIPTA MANET Monday, Feb 11, 1805] - -I must own to a superstitious dread of the destruction of paper worthy -of a Mahometan. But I am also ashamed to confess to myself what pulling -back of heart I feel whenever I wish to light a candle or kindle a fire -with a Hospital or Harbour Report, and what a cumulus lies on my table, -I not able to conjecture of what use they can ever be, and yet trembling -lest what I then destroyed might be of some use in the way of knowledge. -This seems to be the excess of a good feeling, but it is ridiculous. - - -[Sidenote: COWPER'S "LINES TO MRS. UNWIN"] - -It is not without a certain sense of self-reproof, as well as -self-distrust, that I ask, or, rather, that my understanding suggests to -me the query, whether this divine poem (in so original a strain of -thought and feeling honourable to human nature) would not have been more -perfect if the third, fourth, and fifth stanzas had been omitted, and -the tenth and eleventh transposed so as to stand as the third and -fourth. It is not, perhaps not at all, but, certainly, not principally -that I feel any meanness in the "needles;" but, not to mention that the -words "once a shining store" is a speck in the diamond (in a less dear -poem I might, perhaps, have called it more harshly a _rhyme-botch_), and -that the word "restless" is rather too strong an impersonation for the -serious tone, the _real_ness of the poem, and seems to tread too closely -on the mock-heroic; but that it seems not true to poetic feeling to -introduce the affecting circumstance of dimness of sight from decay of -nature on an occasion so remote from the [Greek: to katholou], and that -the fifth stanza, graceful and even affecting as the spirit of the -playfulness is or would be, at least, in a poem having less depth of -feeling, breaks in painfully here--the age and afflicting infirmities -both of the writer and his subject seem abhorrent from such trifling -of--scarcely fancy, for I fear, if it were analysed, that the whole -effect would be found to depend on phrases hackneyed, and taken from the -alms-house of the Muses. The test would be this: read the poem to a -well-educated but natural woman, an unaffected, gentle being, endued -with sense and sensibility--substituting the tenth and eleventh stanzas -for those three, and some days after shew her the poem as it now stands. -I seem to be sure that she would be shocked--an alien would have -intruded himself, and be found sitting in a circle of dear friends whom -she expected to have found _all to themselves_. - - -[Sidenote: ETYMOLOGY] - -To say that etymology is a science--is to use this word in its laxest -and improper sense. But our language, except, at least, in poetry, has -dropped the word "lore"--the _lehre_ of the Germans, the _logos_ of the -Greek. Either we should have retained the word and ventured on -_Root-lore_, _verse-lore_, etc., or have adopted the Greek as a single -word as well as a word in combination. All novelties appear or are -rather felt as ridiculous in language; but, if it had been once adopted, -it would have been no stranger to have said that etymo_logy_ is a _logy_ -which perishes from a plethora of probability, than that the _art_ of -war is an _art_ apparently for the destruction and subjugation of -particular states, but really for the lessening of bloodshed and the -preservation of the liberties of mankind. Art and Science are both too -much appropriated--our language wants terms of comprehensive generality, -implying the kind, not the degree or species, as in that good and -necessary word _sensuous_, which we have likewise dropped, opposed to -sensual, sensitive, sensible, etc., etc. Chymistry has felt this -difficulty, and found the necessity of having one word for the supposed -cause, another for the effect, as in caloric or calorific, opposed to -heat; and psychology has still more need of the reformation. - - -[Sidenote: SENTIMENT, AN ANTIDOTE TO CASUISTRY] - -The Queen-bee in the hive of Popish Error, the great mother of the -swarm, seems to me their tenet concerning Faith and Works, placing the -former wholly in the rectitude, nay, in the rightness of intellectual -conviction, and the latter in the definite and, most often, the material -action, and, consequently, the assertion of the dividuous nature and -self-existence of works. Hence the doctrine of damnation out of the -Church of Rome--of the one visible Church--of the absolute efficiency -_in se_ of all the Sacraments and the absolute merit of ceremonial -observances. Consider the incalculable advantage of chiefly dwelling on -the virtues of the heart, of habits of feeling and harmonious action, -the music of the adjusted string at the impulse of the breeze, and, on -the other hand, the evils of books concerning particular actions, minute -cases of conscience, hair-splitting directions and decisions, O how -illustrated by the detestable character of most of the Roman Catholic -casuists! No actions should be distinctly described but such as -manifestly tend to awaken the heart to efficient feeling, whether of -fear or of love--actions that, falling back on the fountain, keep it -full, or clear out the mud from its pipes, and make it play in its -abundance, shining in that purity in which, at once, the purity and the -light is each the cause of the other, the light purifying, and the -purified receiving and reflecting the light, sending it off to others; -not, like the polished mirror, by reflection from itself, but by -transmission through itself. - - -[Sidenote: THE EMPYREAN] - -Friday + Saturday, 12-1 o'clock [March 2, 1805.] - -What a sky! the not yet orbed moon, the spotted oval, blue at one edge -from the deep utter blue of the sky--a MASS of _pearl_-white cloud -below, distant, and travelling to the horizon, but all the upper part of -the ascent and all the height such _profound_ blue, deep as a deep -river, and deep in colour, and those two depths so entirely _one_, _as_ -to give the meaning and explanation of the two different significations -of the epithet. Here, so far from _divided_, they were scarcely -_distinct_, scattered over with thin pearl-white cloudlets--hands and -fingers--the largest not larger than a floating veil! Unconsciously I -stretched forth my arms as to embrace the sky, and in a trance I had -worshipped God in the moon--the spirit, not the form. I felt in how -innocent a feeling Sabeism might have begun. Oh! not only the moon, but -the depths of the sky! The moon was the _idea_; but deep sky is, of all -visual impressions, the nearest akin to a feeling. It is more a feeling -than a sight, or, rather, it is the melting away and entire union of -feeling and sight! - - -[Sidenote: DISTEMPER'S WORST CALAMITY] - -Monday morning, which I ought not to have known not to be Sunday night, -2 o'clock, March 4, 1805. - -My dreams to-night were interfused with struggle and fear, though, till -the very last, not victors; but the very last, which awoke me, was a -completed night-mare, as it gave the _idea_ and _sensation_ of actual -grasp or touch contrary to _my_ will and in apparent consequence of the -malignant will of the external form, whether actually appearing or, as -sometimes happened, believed to exist--in which latter case I have two -or three times felt a horrid touch of hatred, a grasp, or a weight of -hate and horror abstracted from all [conscious] form or supposal of -form, an _abstract touch_, an _abstract_ grasp, an _abstract_ weight! -_Quam nihil ad genium Papiliane tuum!_ or, in other words, _This -Mackintosh would prove to be nonsense by a Scotch smile._ The last -[dream], that woke me, though a true night-mare, was, however, a mild -one. I cried out early, like a scarcely-hurt child who knows himself -within hearing of his mother. But, anterior to this, I had been playing -with children, especially with one most lovely child, about two years or -two and a half, and had repeated to her, in my dream, "The dews were -falling fast," &c., and I was sorely frightened by the sneering and -fiendish malignity of the beautiful creature, but from the beginning -there had been a terror about it and proceeding from it. I shall -hereafter, read the Vision in "Macbeth" with increased admiration. - -["_Quam nihil ad genium Papiniane tuum_," was the motto of _The Lyrical -Ballads_.] - - -That deep intuition of our _one_ness, is it not at the bottom of many of -our faults as well as virtues? the dislike that a bad man should have -any virtues, a good man any faults? And yet, too, a something noble and -incentive is in this. - - -[Sidenote: THE OMNISCIENT THE COMFORTER] - -What comfort in the silent eye upraised to God! "_Thou_ knowest." O! -what a thought! Never to be friendless, never to be unintelligible! The -omnipresence has been generally represented as a spy, a sort of -Bentham's Panopticon.[D] O to feel what the pain is to be utterly -unintelligible and then--"O God, thou understandest!" - - -[Sidenote: POETS AS CRITICS OF POETS] - -The question should be fairly stated, how far a man can be an adequate, -or even a good (as far as he goes) though inadequate critic of poetry -who is not a poet, at least, _in posse_? Can he be an adequate, can he -be a good critic, though not commensurate [with the poet criticised]? -But there is yet another distinction. Supposing he is not only not a -poet, but is a bad poet! What then? - - -[Sidenote: IMMATURE CRITICS March 16, 1805] - -[The] cause of the offence or disgust received by the _mean_ in good -poems when we are young, and its diminution and occasional evanescence -when we are older in true taste [is] that, at first, we are from various -causes delighted with _generalities_ of nature which can all be -expressed in dignified words; but, afterwards, becoming more intimately -acquainted with Nature in her detail, we are delighted with _distinct_, -vivid ideas, and with vivid ideas most when made distinct, and can most -often forgive and sometimes be delighted with even a low image from art -or low life when it gives you the very thing by an illustration, as, for -instance, Cowper's stream "inlaying" the level vale as with silver, and -even Shakspere's "shrill-tongued Tapster's answering shallow wits" -applied to echoes in an _echofull_ place. - - -[Sidenote: ATTENTION AND SENSATION March 17, 1805] - -Of the not being able to know whether you are smoking in the dark or -when your eyes are shut: item, of the ignorance in that state of the -difference of beef, veal, &c.--it is all attention. Your ideas being -shut, other images arise which you must _attend to_, it being the habit -of a _seeing_ man to attend chiefly to _sight_. So close your eyes, -(and) you attend to the ideal images, and, attending to them, you -abstract your _attention_. It is the same when deeply thinking in a -reverie, you no longer hear distinct sound made to you. But what a -strange inference that there were no sounds! - - -[Sidenote: ST. COLUMBA] - -I love St. Combe or Columba and he shall be my saint. For he is not in -the Catalogue of Romish Saints, having never been canonised at Rome, and -because this Apostle of the Picts lived and gave his name to an island -on the Hebrides, and from him Switzerland was christianised. - - -[Sidenote: EXPERIENCE AND BOOK KNOWLEDGE Midnight, April 5, 1805] - -"I will write," I said, "as truly as I can from experience, actual -individual experience, not from book-knowledge." But yet it is wonderful -how exactly the knowledge from good books coincides with the experience -of men of the world. How often, when I was younger, have I noticed the -deep delight of men of the world who have taken late in life to -literature, on coming across a passage the force of which had either -escaped me altogether, or which I knew to be true from books only and at -second hand! Experience is necessary, no doubt, if only to give a light -and shade in the mind, to give to some one idea a greater vividness than -to others, and thereby to make it a _Thing_ of _Time_ and actual -reality. For all ideas being equally vivid, the whole becomes a dream. -But, notwithstanding this and other reasons, I yet believe that the saws -against book-knowledge are handed down to us from times when books -conveyed only abstract science or abstract morality and religion. -Whereas, in the present day, what is there of real life, in all its -goings on, trades, manufactures, high life, low life, animate and -inanimate that is not to be found in books? In these days books are -conversation. And this, I know, is for evil as well as good, but for -good, too, as well as evil. - - -[Sidenote: DUTY AND SELF INTEREST Sunday morning 4 o'clock, April 7, -1805] - -How feebly, how unlike an English cock, that cock crows and the other -answers! Did I not particularly notice the _un_likeness on my first -arrival at Malta? Well, to-day I will disburthen my mind. Yet one thing -strikes me, the difference I find in myself during the past year or two. -My enthusiasm for the happiness of mankind in particular places and -countries, and my eagerness to promote it, seems to decrease, and my -sense of duty, my hauntings of conscience, from any stain of thought or -action to increase in the same ratio. I remember having written a -strong letter to my most dear and honoured Wordsworth in consequence of -his "Ode to Duty," and in that letter explained this as the effect of -selfness in a mind incapable of gross self-interest--I mean, the -decrease of hope and joy, the soul in its round and round flight forming -narrower circles, till at every gyre its wings beat against the -_personal self_. But let me examine this more accurately. It may be that -the phenomena will come out more honourable to our nature. - - -[Sidenote: EVIL PRODUCES EVIL] - -It is as trite as it is mournful (but yet most instructive), and by the -genius that can produce the strongest impressions of novelty by rescuing -the stalest and most admitted truths from the impotence caused by the -very circumstance of their universal admission--admitted so instantly as -never to be _reflected_ on, never by that sole key of reflection -admitted into the effective, legislative chamber of the heart--so true -that they lose all the privileges of Truth, and, as extremes meet by -being _truisms_, correspond in utter inefficiency with universally -acknowledged errors (in Algebraic symbols Truisms = Falsehoodisms = -[scir][scir])--by that genius, I say, might good be worked in -considering the old, old Methusalem saw that "evil produces evil." One -error almost compels another. Tell one lie, tell a hundred. Oh, to show -this, _a priori_, by bottoming it in all our faculties and by -experience of touching examples! - - -[Sidenote: JOHN WORDSWORTH Monday, April 8, 1805] - -The favourite object of all Oriental tales, and that which, whist it -inspired their authors in the East, still inspires their readers -everywhere, is the impossibility of baffling Destiny--the perception -that what we considered as the means of one thing becomes, in a strange -manner, the direct means of the reverse. O dear John Wordsworth! what -joy at Grasmere that you were made Captain of the Abergavenny, and so -young too! Now it was next to certain that you would in a few years -settle in your native hills and be verily one of the _Concern_! Then -came your share in the brilliant action with Linois. (I was at Grasmere -in spirit only, but in spirit I was one of the rejoicers--as joyful as -any, and, perhaps, more joyous!) This, doubtless, not only enabled you -to lay in a larger and more advantageous cargo, but procured you a -voyage to India instead of China, and in this circumstance a next to -certainty of independence--and all these were decoys of Death! Well, but -a nobler feeling than these vain regrets would become the friend of the -man whose last words were: "I have done my duty! let her go!" Let us do -our _duty_! all else is a dream, life and death alike a dream. This -short sentence would comprise, I believe, the sum of all profound -philosophy, of ethics and metaphysics conjointly, from Plato to Fichte! - -[_Vide Letters of S. T. C._, 1895, ii. 495, _note_.] - - -[Sidenote: LOVE THE DIVINE ESSENCE] - -The best, the truly lovely in each and all, is God. Therefore the truly -beloved is _the symbol of God_ to whomever it is truly beloved by, but -it may become perfect and maintained love by the function of the two. -The lover worships in his beloved that final consummation of itself -which is produced in his own soul by the action of the soul of the -beloved upon it, and that final perception of the soul of the beloved -which is in part the consequence of the reaction of his (so ameliorated -and regenerated) soul upon the soul of his beloved, till each -contemplates the soul of the other as involving his own, both in its -givings and its receivings, and thus, still keeping alive its _outness_, -its _self-oblivion_ united with self-warmth, still approximates to God! -Where shall I find an image for this sublime symbol which, ever -involving the presence of Deity, yet tends towards it ever? Shall it be -in the attractive powers of the different surfaces of the earth? each -attraction the vicegerent and representative of the central attraction, -and yet being no other than that attraction itself? By some such feeling -as this I can easily believe the mind of Fénelon and Madame Guyon to -have coloured its faith in the worship of saints, but that was most -dangerous. It was not idolatry in _them_, but it encouraged idolatry in -others. Now, the pure love of a good man for a good woman does not -involve this evil, but it multiplies, intensifies the good. - - -[Sidenote: ORDER IN DREAMS] - -Dreamt that I was saying or reading, or that it was read to me, "Varrius -thus prophesied vinegar at his door by damned frigid tremblings." Just -after, I woke. I fell to sleep again, having in the previous doze -meditated on the possibility of making dreams regular; and just as I had -passed on the other side of the confine of dozing, I afforded this -specimen: "I should have thought it Vossius rather than Varrius, though, -Varrius being a great poet, the idea would have been more suitable to -him, only that all his writings were unfortunately lost in the _Arrow_." -Again I awoke. _N.B._--The _Arrow_, Captain Vincent's frigate, from -which our Malta letters and dispatches had been previously thrown -overboard, was taken by the French, in February 1805. This _illustrates -the connection of dreams_. - - -[Sidenote: ORANGE BLOSSOM April 8, 1805] - -I never had a more lovely twig of orange-blossoms, with four old last -year's leaves with their steady green well-placed among them, than -to-day, and with a rose-twig of three roses [it] made a very striking -nosegay to an Englishman, The Orange Twig was so very full of blossoms -that one-fourth of the number becoming fruit of the natural size would -have broken the twig off. Is there, then, disproportion here? or waste? -O no! no! In the first place, here is a prodigality of beauty; and what -harm do they do by existing? And is not man a being capable of Beauty -even as of Hunger and Thirst? And if the latter be fit objects of a -final cause, why not the former? But secondly [Nature] hereby multiplies -manifold the chances of a proper number becoming fruit--in this twig, -for instance, for one set of accidents that would have been fatal to the -year's growth if only as many blossoms had been on it as it was designed -to bear fruit, there may now be three sets of accidents--and no harm -done. And, thirdly and lastly, for _me_ at _least_--or, at least, at -present, for in nature doubtless there are many additional reasons, and -possibly for _me_ at some future hour of reflection, after some new -influx of information from books or observance-and, thirdly, these -blossoms are Fruit, fruit to the winged insect, fruit to man--yea! and -of more solid value, perhaps, than the orange itself! O how the Bees -be-throng and be-murmur it! O how the honey tells the tale of its -birthplace to the sense of sight and odour! and to how many minute and -uneyeable insects beside! So, I cannot but think, ought I to be talking -to Hartley, and sometimes to detail all the insects that have arts or -implements resembling human--the sea-snails, with the nautilus at their -head; the wheel-insect, the galvanic eel, etc. - -[This note was printed in the _Illustrated London News_, June 10, 1893.] - - -[Sidenote: ANTICIPATIONS IN NATURE AND IN THOUGHT Saturday night, April -14, 1805] - -In looking at objects of Nature while I am thinking, as at yonder moon -dim-glimmering through the dewy window-pane, I seem rather to be -seeking, as it were _asking_ for, a symbolical language for something -within me that already and for ever exists, than observing anything new. -Even when that latter is the case, yet still I have always an obscure -feeling as if that new phenomena were the dim awaking of a forgotten or -hidden truth of my inner nature. It is still interesting as a word--a -symbol. It is [Greek: Logos] the Creator, and the Evolver! [Now] what is -the right, the virtuous feeling, and consequent action when a man having -long meditated on and perceived a certain truth, finds another, a -foreign writer, who has handled the same with an approximation to the -truth as he had previously conceived it? Joy! Let Truth make her voice -audible! While I was preparing the pen to write this remark, I lost the -train of thought which had led me to it. I meant to have asked something -else now forgotten. For the above answers itself. It needed no answer, -I trust, in my heart. - -[Printed in _Life of S. T. C._, by James Gillman, 1838, p. 311.] - - -[Sidenote: THE HOPE OF HUMANITY, Easter Sunday, 1805] - -That beautiful passage in dear and honoured W. Wordsworth's "Michael," -respecting the forward-looking Hope inspired pre-eminently by the birth -of a child, was brought to my mind most forcibly by my own independent -though, in part, anticipated reflections on the importance of young -children to the keeping up the stock of Hope in the human species. They -seem to be the immediate and secreting organ of Hope in the great -organised body of the whole human race, in _all men_ considered as the -component atoms of _Man_--as young leaves are the organs of supplying -vital air to the atmosphere. - - Thus living on through such a length of years, - The Shepherd, if he loved himself, must needs - Have loved his Helpmate; but to Michael's heart - This son of his old age was yet more dear-- - Less from instinctive tenderness, the same - Fond spirit that blindly works in the blood of all-- - Than that a child, more than all other gifts - That earth can offer to declining man, - Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts, - And stirrings of inquietude, when they - By tendency of nature needs must fail. - - --_Poetical Works of_ W. WORDSWORTH, p. 133. - - -[Sidenote: THE NORTHERN EASTER Easter Sunday, 1805] - -The English and German climates and that of northern France possess, -among many others, this one little beauty of uniting the mysteries of -positive with those of natural religion--in celebrating the symbolical -resurrection of the human soul in that of the Crucified, at the time of -the actual resurrection of the "living life" of nature. - - -[Sidenote: SPIRITUAL RELIGION] - -Religion consists in truth and virtue, that is, the permanent, the -_forma efformans_, in the flux of things without, of feelings and images -within. Well, therefore, does the Scripture speak of the Spirit as -praying to the Spirit, "The Lord said to my Lord." God is the essence as -well as the object of religion. - - -[Sidenote: A SUPPOSITION Wednesday, April 17, 1805] - -I would not willingly kill even a flower, but were I at the head of an -army, or a revolutionary kingdom, I would do my duty; and though it -should be the ordering of the military execution of a city, yet, -supposing it to be my duty, I would give the order--and then, in awe, -listen to the uproar, even as to a thunderstorm--the awe as tranquil, -the submission to the inevitable, to the unconnected with myself, as -profound. It should be as if the lightning of heaven passed along my -sword and destroyed a man. - - -[Sidenote: ENTHUSIASM] - -Does the sober judgement previously measure out the banks between which -the stream of enthusiasm shall rush with its torrent-sound? Far rather -does the stream itself plough up its own channel and find its banks in -the adamant rocks of nature! - - -[Sidenote: ADHÆSIT PAVIMENTO COR] - -There are times when my thoughts--how like music! O that these times -were more frequent! But how can they be, I being so hopeless, and for -months past so incessantly employed in official tasks, subscribing, -examining, administering oaths, auditing, and so forth? - - -[Sidenote: THE REALISATION OF DEATH] - -John Tobin dead, and just after the success of his play! and Robert -Allen dead suddenly! - -O when we are young we lament for death only by sympathy, or with the -general feeling with which we grieve for misfortunes in general, but -there comes a time (and this year is the time that has come to me) when -we lament for death as death, when it is felt for itself, and as itself, -aloof from all its consequences. Then comes the grave-stone into the -heart with all its mournful names, then the bell-man's or clerk's verses -subjoined to the bills of mortality are no longer common-place. - -[John Tobin the dramatist died December 7, 1804. His play entitled "The -Honeymoon" was published in 1805. - -Robert Allen, Coleridge's contemporary and school-friend, held the post -of deputy-surgeon to the 2nd Royals, then on service in Portugal. He was -a friend of Dr. (afterwards Sir J.) Stoddart, with whom Coleridge stayed -on his first arrival at Malta. See _Letters of Charles Lamb_, Macmillan, -1888, i. 188.] - - -[Sidenote: LOVE AND DUTY] - -Würde, worthiness, VIRTUE, consist in the mastery over the sensuous and -sensual impulses; but love requires INNOCENCE. Let the lover ask his -heart whether he can endure that his mistress should have _struggled_ -with a sensual impulse for another man, though she overcame it from a -sense of duty to him. Women are LESS offended with men, in part, from -the vicious habits of men, and, in part, from the difference of bodily -constitution. Yet, still, to a pure and truly loving woman this must be -a painful thought. That he should struggle with and overcome ambition, -desire of fortune, superior beauty, &c., or with objectless desire of -any kind, is pleasing, but _not_ that he has struggled with positive, -appropriated desire, that is, desire _with_ an object. Love, in short, -requires an absolute peace and harmony between all parts of human -nature, such as it is; and it is offended by any _war_, though the -battle should be decided in favour of the worthier. This is, perhaps, -the final cause of the _rarity_ of true love, and the efficient and -immediate cause of its difficulty. Ours is a life of probation. We are -to contemplate and obey _duty_ for its own sake, and in order to do -this, we, in our present imperfect state of being, must see it not -merely abstracted from but in direct opposition to the _wish_, the -_inclination_. Having perfected this, the highest possibility of human -nature, man may then with safety harmonise _all_ his being with this--he -may _love_. To perform duties absolutely from the sense of duty is the -_ideal_, which, perhaps, no human being ever can arrive at, but which -every human being ought to try to draw near unto. This is, in the only -wise, and, verily, in a most sublime sense, to see God face to face, -which, alas! it seems too true that no man can do and _live_, that is, a -_human_ life. It would become incompatible with his organization, or -rather, it would _transmute_ it, and the process of that transmutation, -to the senses of other men, would be called death. Even as to the -caterpillar, in all probability, the caterpillar dies, and he either, -which is most probable, does not see (or, at all events, does not see -the connection between the caterpillar and) the butterfly, the beautiful -Psyche of the Greeks. - - -[Sidenote: HAPPINESS MADE PERFECT] - -Those who in this life love in perfection, if such there be, in -proportion as their love has no struggles, see God darkly and through a -veil. For when duty and pleasure are absolutely co-incident, the very -nature of our organisation necessitates that duty will be contemplated -as the symbol of pleasure, instead of pleasure being (as in a future -life we have faith it will be) the symbol of duty. For herein lies the -distinction between human and angelic happiness. Humanly happy I call -him who in enjoyment _finds_ his duty; angelically happy he, who seeks -and finds his duty in enjoyment. - -Happiness in general may be defined, not the aggregate of pleasurable -sensations--for this is either a dangerous error and the creed of -sensualists, or else a mere translation or wordy paraphrase--but the -state of that person who, in order to enjoy his nature in the highest -manifestation of conscious _feeling_, has no need of doing wrong, and -who, in order to do right, is under no necessity of abstaining from -enjoyment. - -[_Vide Life of S. T. C._, by James Gillman, 1838, pp. 176-78.] - - -[Sidenote: THOUGHT AND THINGS] - -Thought and reality are, as it were, two distinct corresponding sounds, -of which no man can say positively which is the voice and which the -echo. - -Oh, the beautiful fountain or natural well at Upper Stowey! The images -of the weeds which hung down from its sides appear as plants growing up, -straight and upright, among the water-weeds that really grow from the -bottom of the well, and so vivid was the image, that for some moments, -and not till after I had disturbed the water, did I perceive that their -roots were not neighbours, and they side-by-side companions. So ever, -then I said, so are the happy man's thoughts and things, [or in the -language of the modern philosophers] his ideas and impressions. - - -[Sidenote: SUPERSTITION] - -The two characteristics which I have most observed in Roman Catholic -mummery processions, baptisms, etc., are, first, the immense _noise_ and -jingle-jingle as if to frighten away the dæmon common-sense; and, -secondly, the unmoved, stupid, uninterested faces of the conjurers. I -have noticed no exception. Is not the very nature of superstition in -general, as being utterly sensuous, _cold_ except where it is _sensual_? -Hence the older form of idolatry, as displayed in the Greek mythology, -was, in some sense, even preferable to the Popish. For whatever life -did and could exist in superstition it brought forward and sanctified in -its rites of Bacchus, Venus, etc. The papist by pretence of suppression -warps and denaturalises. In the pagan [ritual, superstition] burnt with -a bright flame, in the popish it consumes the soul with a smothered fire -that stinks in darkness and smoulders like gum that burns but is -incapable of light. - - -[Sidenote: ILLUSION Sunday Midnight, May 12, 1805] - -At the Treasury, La Valetta, Malta, in the room the windows of which -directly face the piazzas and vast saloon built for the archives and -Library and now used as the Garrison Ball-room, sitting at one corner of -a large parallelogram table well-littered with books, in a red -arm-chair, at the other corner of which (diagonally) {_C}[rec]^D Mr. -Dennison had been sitting--he and I having conversed for a long time, he -bade me good night, and retired--I meaning to retire too, however sunk -for five minutes or so into a doze and on suddenly awaking up I saw him -as distinctly sitting in the chair, as I had, really, some ten minutes -before. I was startled, and thinking of it, sunk into a second doze, out -of which awaking as before I saw again the same appearance; not more -distinct indeed, but more of his form--for at the first time I had seen -only his face and bust--but now I saw as much as I could have seen if -he had been really there. The appearance was very nearly that of a -person seen through thin smoke distinct indeed, but yet a sort of -distinct _shape_ and _colour_, with a diminished sense of -_substantiality_--like a face in a clear stream. My nerves had been -violently agitated yesterday morning by the attack of three dogs as I -was mounting the steps of Captain Pasley's door--two of them savage -Bedouins, who wounded me in the calf of my left leg. I have noted this -down, not three minutes having intervened since the illusion took place. -Often and often I have had similar experiences and, therefore, resolved -to write down the particulars whenever any new instance should occur, as -a weapon against superstition, and an explanation of ghosts--Banquo in -"Macbeth" the very same thing. I once told a lady the reason why I did -not believe in the existence of ghosts, etc., was that I had seen too -many of them myself. N.B. There were on the table a common black -wine-bottle, a decanter of water, and, between these, one of the -half-gallon glass flasks which Sir G. Beaumont had given me (four of -these full of port), the cork in, covered with leather, and having a -white plated ring on the top. I mention this because since I wrote the -former pages, on blinking a bit a third time, and opening my eyes, I -clearly _detected_ that this high-shouldered hypochondriacal bottle-man -had a great share in producing the effect. The metamorphosis was -clearly beginning, though I snapped the spell before it had assumed a -recognisable form. The red-leather arm-chair was so placed at the corner -that the flask was exactly between me and it--and the lamp being close -to my corner of the large table, and not giving much light, the chair -was rather obscure, and the brass nails where the leather was fastened -to the outward wooden rim reflecting the light more copiously were seen -almost for themselves. What if instead of immediately checking the -sight, and then pleased with it as a philosophical _case_, I had been -frightened and encouraged it, and my understanding had joined _its vote_ -to that of my senses? - -My own shadow, too, on the wall not far from Mr. D.'s chair--the white -paper, the sheet of Harbour Reports lying spread out on the table on the -other side of the bottles--influence of mere colour, influence of -shape--wonderful coalescence of scattered colours at distances, and, -then, all going to some one shape, and the modification! Likewise I am -more convinced by repeated observation that, perhaps, always in a very -minute degree but assuredly in certain states and postures of the eye, -as in drowsiness, in the state of the brain and nerves after distress or -agitation, especially if it had been accompanied by weeping, and in -many others, we see our own faces, and project them according to the -distance given them by the degree of indistinctness--that this may -occasion in the highest degree the Wraith (_vide_ a hundred Scotch -stories, but better than all, Wordsworth's most wonderful and admirable -poem, Peter Bell, when he sees his own figure), and, still oftener, that -it facilitates the formation of a human face out of some really present -object, and from the alteration of the distance among other causes never -suspected as the occasion and substratum. - - S. T. C. - -N.B.--This is a valuable note, re-read by me, Tuesday morning, May 14. - -[Compare _Table Talk_ for January 3 and May 1, 1823, Bell & Co., 1884, -pp. 20, 31-33. See, too, _The Friend_, First Landing Place Essay, iii., -_Coleridge's Works_, Harper & Brothers, 1853, ii. 134-137.] - - -[Sidenote: FOR THE "SOOTHER IN ABSENCE"] - -Mem. always to bear in mind that profound sentence of Leibnitz that -men's intellectual errors consist chiefly in _denying_. What they -_affirm_ with _feeling_ is, for the most part, right--if it be a real -affirmation, and not affirmative in form, negative in reality. As, for -instance, when a man praises the French stage, meaning and implying his -dislike of Shakspere [and the Elizabethan dramatists]. - - -"Facts--stubborn facts! None of your theory!" A most entertaining and -instructive essay might be written on this text, and the sooner the -better. Trace it from the most absurd credulity--_e.g._, in -Fracastorius' _De Sympathiâ_, cap. i. and the Alchemy Book--even to that -of your modern agriculturists, relating their own facts and swearing -against each other like ships' crews. O! it is the relation of the -facts--not the facts, friend! - - -Speculative men are wont to be condemned by the general. But who more -speculative then Sir Walter Raleigh, and _he_, even he, brought the -potato to Europe. Good heavens! let me never eat a roasted potato -without dwelling on it, and detailing its train of consequences. -Likewise, too, _dubious_ to the philosopher, but to be clapped chorally -by the commercial world, he, this mere wild speculatist, introduced -tobacco. - - -For a nation to make peace only because it is tired of war, and, as it -were, in order just to take breath, is in direct subversion of the end -and object of the war which was its sole justification. 'Tis like a poor -way-sore foot traveller getting up behind a coach that is going the -contrary way to his. - - -The eye hath a two-fold power. It is, verily, a window through which you -not only look _out_ of the house, but can look into it too. A statesman -and diplomatist should for this reason always wear spectacles. - - -Worldly men gain their purposes with worldly men by that instinctive -belief in sincerity. Hence (nothing immediately and passionately -contradicting it) the effect of the "with unfeigned esteem," "entire -devotion," and the other smooth phrases in letters, all, in short, that -sea-officers call _oil_, and of which they, with all their bluntness, -well understand the use. - - -The confusion of metaphor with reality is one of the fountains of the -many-headed Nile of credulity, which, overflowing its banks, covers the -world with miscreations and reptile monsters, and feeds by its many -mouths the sea of blood. - - -A ready command of a limited number of words is but a playing cat-cradle -dexterously with language. - - -Plain contra-reasoning may be compared with boxing with fists. -Controversy with boxing is the cestus, that is, the lead-loaded glove, -like the pugilists in the Æneid. But the stiletto! the envenomed -stiletto is here. What worse? (a Germanism) Yes! the poisoned Italian -glove of mock friendship. - - -The more I reflect, the more exact and close appears to me the analogy -between a watch and watches, and the conscience and consciences of men, -on the one hand, and that between the sun and motion of the heavenly -bodies in general and the reason and goodness of the Supreme on the -other. Never goes quite right any one, no two go exactly the same; they -derive their dignity and use as being substitutes and exponents of -heavenly motions, but still, in a thousand instances, they are and must -be our instructors by which we must act, in practice presuming a -coincidence while theoretically we are aware of incalculable variations. - - - One lifts up one's eyes to heaven, as if to seek there what one had - lost on earth--eyes, - Whose half-beholdings through unsteady tears - Gave shape, hue, distance to the inward dream. - - -[Sidenote: GREAT MEN THE CRITERION OF NATIONAL WORTH] - -Schiller, disgusted with Kotzebuisms, deserts from Shakspere! What! -cannot we condemn a counterfeit and yet remain admirers of the original? -This is a sufficient proof that the first admiration was not sound, or -founded on sound distinct perceptions [or, if sprung from], a sound -feeling, yet clothed and manifested to the consciousness by false ideas. -And now the French stage is to be re-introduced. O Germany! Germany! why -this endless rage for novelty? Why this endless looking out of thyself? -But stop, let me not fall into the pit against which I was about to warn -others. Let me not confound the discriminating character and genius of a -nation with the conflux of its individuals in cities and reviews. Let -England be Sir Philip Sidney, Shakspere, Milton, Bacon, Harrington, -Swift, Wordsworth; and never let the names of Darwin, Johnson, Hume, -_fur_ it over. If these, too, must be England let them be another -England; or, rather, let the first be old England, the spiritual, -Platonic old England, and the second, with Locke at the head of the -philosophers and Pope [at the head] of the poets, together with the long -list of Priestleys, Paleys, Hayleys, Darwins, Mr. Pitts, Dundasses, &c., -&c., be the representatives of commercial Great Britain. These have -[indeed] their merits, but are as alien to me as the Mandarin -philosophers and poets of China. Even so Leibnitz, Lessing, Voss, Kant, -shall be _Germany_ to me, let whatever coxcombs rise up, and _shrill_ it -away in the grasshopper vale of reviews. And so shall Dante, Ariosto, -Giordano Bruno, be my Italy; Cervantes my Spain; and O! that I could -find a France for my love. But spite of Pascal, Madame Guyon and -Molière, France is my Babylon, the mother of whoredoms in morality, -philosophy and taste. The French themselves feel a foreignness in these -writers. How indeed is it possible at once to _love_ Pascal and -Voltaire? - - -[Sidenote: AN INTELLECTUAL PURGATORY Tuesday morning, May 14, 1805] - -With any distinct remembrance of a past life there could be no fear of -death as death, no idea even of death! Now, in the next state, to meet -with the Luthers, Miltons, Leibnitzs, Bernouillis, Bonnets, Shaksperes, -etc., and to live a longer and better life, the good and wise entirely -among the good and wise, might serve as a step to break the abruptness -of an immediate Heaven? But it must be a human life; and though the -faith in a hereafter would be more firm, more undoubting, yet, still, it -must not be a sensuous remembrance of a death passed over. No! [it would -be] something like a dream that you had not died, but had been taken -off; in short, the real events with the obscurity of a dream, -accompanied with the notion that you had never died, but that death was -yet to come. As a man who, having walked in his sleep, by rapid openings -of his eyes--too rapid to be observable by others or rememberable by -himself--sees and remembers the whole of his path, mixing it with many -fancies _ab intra_, and, awaking, remembers, but yet as a dream. - - -[Sidenote: OF FIRST LOVES] - -'Tis one source of mistakes concerning the merits of poems, that to -those read in youth men attribute all that praise which is due to poetry -in general, merely considered as select language in metre. (Little -children should not be taught verses, in my opinion; better not to let -them set eyes on verse till they are ten or eleven years old.) Now, -poetry produces two kinds of pleasure, one for each of the two -master-movements and impulses of man, the gratification of the love of -variety, and the gratification of the love of uniformity--and that by a -recurrence delightful as a painless and yet exciting act of memory--tiny -breezelets of surprise, each one destroying the ripplets which the -former had made--yet all together keeping the surface of the mind in a -bright dimple-smile. So, too, a hatred of vacancy is reconciled with the -love of rest. These and other causes often make [a first acquaintance -with] poetry an overpowering delight to a lad of feeling, as I have -heard Poole relate of himself respecting Edwin and Angelina. But so it -would be with a man bred up in a wilderness by Unseen Beings, who should -yet converse and discourse rationally with him--how beautiful would not -the first other man appear whom he saw and knew to be a man by the -resemblance to his own image seen in the clear stream; and would he not, -in like manner, attribute to the man all the divine attributes of -humanity, though, haply, he should be a very ordinary, or even a most -ugly man, compared with a hundred others? Many of us who have felt this -with respect to women have been bred up where few are to be seen; and I -acknowledge that, both in persons and in poems, it is well _on the -whole_ that we should retain our first love, though, alike in both -cases, evils have happened as the consequence. - - -[Sidenote: THE MADDENING RAIN August 1, 1805] - -The excellent fable of the maddening rain I have found in Drayton's -"Moon Calf," most miserably marred in the telling! vastly inferior to -Benedict Fay's Latin exposition of it, and that is no great thing. -_Vide_ his Lucretian Poem on the Newtonian System. Never was a finer -tale for a satire, or, rather, to conclude a long satirical poem of five -or six hundred lines. - -[For excellent use of this fable, see _The Friend_, No. 1, June 9, 1809, -_Coleridge's Works_, Harper & Brothers, ii. 21, 22.] - - -[Sidenote: SENTIMENTS BELOW MORALS] - -Pasley remarked last night (2nd August 1805), and with great precision -and originality, that men themselves, in the present age, were not so -much degraded as their sentiments. This is most true! almost all men -nowadays act and feel more nobly than they think--yet still the vile, -cowardly, selfish, calculating ethics of Paley, Priestley, Locke, and -other Erastians do woefully influence and determine our course of -action. - - -[Sidenote: TIME AND ETERNITY] - -O the complexities of the ravel produced by time struggling with -eternity! _a_ and _b_ are different, and eternity or duration makes them -one--this we call modification--the principle of all greatness in finite -beings, the principle of all contradiction and absurdity. - - -[Sidenote: THE PASSION FOR THE MOT PROPRE August 3, 1805 Saturday] - -It is worthy notice (shewn in the phrase "I envy him such and such a -thing," meaning only, "I regret I cannot share with him, have the same -as he, without depriving him of it, or any part of it,") the instinctive -passion in the mind for a _one word_ to express _one act_ of -feeling--[one] that is, in which, however complex in reality, the mind -is _conscious_ of no discursion and synthesis _a posteriori_. On this -instinct rest all the improvements (and, on the habits formed by this -instinct and [the] knowledge of these improvements, Vanity rears all the -Apuleian, Apollonian, etc., etc., corruptions) of style. Even so with -our Johnson. - - -[Sidenote: BULLS OF ACTION] - -There are _bulls_ of action equally as of thought, [for] (not to allude -to the story of the Irish labourer who laid his comrade all his wages -that he would not carry him down in his hod from the top to the bottom -of a high house, down the ladder) the feeling of vindictive honour in -duelling, and the feudal revenges anterior to duelling, formed a true -bull; for they were superstitious Christians, knew it was wrong, and yet -knew it was right--they would be damned deservedly if they did, and, if -they did not, they thought themselves deserving of being damned. - - -[Sidenote: PSEUDO-POETS] - -The pseudo-poets Campbell, Rogers, etc., both by their writings and -moral character tend to bring poetry into disgrace, and, but that men in -general are the slaves of the same wretched infirmities, they would [set -their seal on this disgrace,] and it would be well. The true poet could -not smother the sacred fire ("his heart burnt within him and he spake"), -and wisdom would be justified by her children. But the false poet--that -is, the no-poet--finding poetry in contempt among the many, of whose -praise, whatever he may affirm, he is alone ambitious, would be -prevented from scribbling. - - -[Sidenote: LANDING PLACES] - -The progress of human intellect from earth to heaven is not a Jacob's -ladder, but a geometrical staircase with five or more landing-places. -That on which we stand enables us to see clearly and count all below us, -while that or those above us are so transparent for our eyes that they -appear the canopy of heaven. We do not see them, and believe ourselves -on the highest. - -["Among my earliest impressions I still distinctly remember that of my -first entrance into the mansion of a neighbouring baronet, awefully -known to me by the name of the Great House [Escot, near Ottery St. Mary, -Devon].... Beyond all other objects I was most struck with the -magnificent staircase, relieved at well-proportioned intervals by -spacious landing-places.... My readers will find no difficulty in -translating these forms of the outward senses into their intellectual -analogies, so as to understand the purport of _The Friend's_ -Landing-Places." _The Friend_, "The Landing-Place," Essay iv. -_Coleridge's Works_, Harper & Brothers, 1853, ii. 137, 138.] - - -[Sidenote: WILLIAM BROWNE OF OTTERY] - -In the _Threnæ_ or funeral songs and elegies of our old poets, I am -often impressed with the idea of their resemblance to hired weepers in -Rome and among the Irish, where he who howled the loudest and most -wildly was the most capital mourner and was at the head of his trade. -So [too] see William Browne's elegy on Prince Henry (_Britt. Past. -Songs_ v.), whom, perhaps, he never spoke to. Yet he is a dear fellow, -and I love him, that W. Browne who died at Ottery, and with whose family -my own is united, or, rather, connected and acquainted. - -[Colonel James Coleridge, the poet's eldest surviving brother and Henry -Langford Browne of Combe-Satchfield married sisters, Frances and Dorothy -Taylor, whose mother was one of five co-heiresses of Richard Duke of -Otterton. - -It is uncertain whether a William Browne of Ottery St. Mary, who died in -1645, was the author of _The Shepherd's Pipe_ and _Britannia's -Pastorals_. Two beautiful inscriptions on a tomb in St. Stephen's Chapel -in the collegiate church of St. Mary Ottery, were, in Southey's opinion -(doubtless at Coleridge's suggestion), composed by the poet William -Browne.] - - -[Sidenote: "ASCEND A STEP IN CHOOSING A FRIEND" TALMUD] - -God knows! that at times I derive a comfort even from my infirmities, my -sins of omission and commission, in the joy of the deep feeling of the -opposite virtues in the two or three whom I love in my heart of hearts. -Sharp, therefore, is the pain when I find faults in these friends -opposite to my virtues. I find no comfort in the notion of average, for -I wish to love even more than to be beloved, and am so haunted by the -conscience of my many failings that I find an unmixed pleasure in -esteeming and admiring, but, as the recipient of esteem or admiration, I -feel as a man, whose good dispositions are still alive, feels in the -enjoyment of a _darling_ property on a doubtful title. My instincts are -so far dog-like that I love beings superior to myself better than my -equals. But the notion of inferiority is so painful to me that I never, -in common life, feel a man my inferior except by after-reflection. What -seems vanity in me is in great part attributable to this feeling. But of -this hereafter. I will cross-examine myself. - - -[Sidenote: A CAUTION TO POSTERITY] - -There are actions which left undone mark the greater man; but to have -done them does not imply a bad or mean man. Such, for instance, are -Martial's compliments of Domitian. So may we praise Milton without -condemning Dryden. By-the-bye, we are all too apt to forget that -contemporaries have not the same _wholeness_, and _fixedness_ in their -notions of persons' characters, that we their posterity have. They can -_hope_ and _fear_ and _believe_ and _disbelieve_. We make up an ideal -which, like the fox or lion in the fable, never changes. - - -[Sidenote: FOR THE "SOOTHER IN ABSENCE"] - -I have several times seen the stiletto and the rosary come out of the -same pocket. - - -A man who marries for love is like a frog who leaps into a well. He has -plenty of water but then he cannot get out. - - -[Not until national ruin is imminent will Ministers contemplate the -approach of national danger]; as if Judgment were overwhelmed like -Belgic towns in the sea, and showed its towers only at dead low water. - - -The superiority of the genus to the particular may be illustrated by -music. How infinitely more perfect in passion and its transition than -even poetry, and poetry again than painting! And yet how marvellous is -genius in all its implements! - -[Compare _Table Talk_, July 6, 1833. H. N. C. _foot-note_. Bell & Co., -1884, p. 240.] - - -Those only who feel no originality, no consciousness of having received -their thoughts and opinions from immediate inspiration are anxious to be -thought original. The certainty, the feeling that he is right, is enough -for the man of genius, and he rejoices to find his opinions plumed and -winged with the authority of several forefathers. - - -The water-lily in the midst of the lake is equally refreshed by the -rain, as the sponge on the sandy sea-shore. - - -In the next world the souls of dull good men serve for bodies to the -souls of the Shaksperes and Miltons, and in the course of a few -centuries, when the soul can do without its vehicle, the bodies will by -advantage of good company have refined themselves into souls fit to be -clothed with like bodies. - - -How much better it would be, in the House of Commons, to have everything -that is, and by the spirit of English freedom must be legal, legal and -open! The reporting, for instance, should be done by shorthandists -appointed by Government. There are, I see, weighty arguments on the -other side, but are they not to be got over? - - -Co-arctation is not a bad phrase for that narrowing in of breadth on -both sides as in my interpolation of Schiller. - - "And soon - The narrowing line of day-light that ran after - The closing door was gone." - - _Piccolomini_, ii. sc. 4, _P.W._, p. 257. - - -[Sidenote: THE DEVIL WITH A MEMORY THE FIRST SINNER] - -In order not to be baffled by the infinite ascent of the heavenly -angels, the devil feigned that all (the [Greek: tagathon], that is, -God himself included) sprang from nothing. And now he has a pretty task -to multiply, without paper or slate, the exact number of all the -animalcules, and the eggs and embryos of each planet, by some other, and -the product by a third and that product by a fourth, and he is not to -stop till he has gone through the planets of half the universe, the -number of which being infinite, it is considered by the devils in -general a great puzzle. A dream in a doze. - - -[Sidenote: THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS] - -A bodily substance, an unborrowed Self--God in God immanent! The Eternal -Word! That goes forth yet remains! Crescent and Full and Wane, yet ever -entire and one, it dawns, and sets, and crowns the height of heaven. At -the same time, the dawning and setting sun, at the same time the -zodiac--while each, in its own hour, boasts and beholds the exclusive -Presence, a peculiar Orb, each the great Traveller's inn, yet still the -unmoving Sun-- - - Great genial Agent in all finite souls; - And by that action puts on finiteness, - Absolute Infinite, whose dazzling robe - Flows in rich folds, and plays in shooting hues - Of infinite finiteness. - - -[Sidenote: FOR THE "SOOTHER IN ABSENCE." Syracuse, September 26, 1805] - -I was standing gazing at the starry heaven, and said, "I will go to bed, -the next star that shoots." Observe this, in counting fixed numbers -previous to doing anything, and deduce from man's own unconscious -acknowledgment man's _dependence_ on something more apparently and -believedly subject to regular and certain laws than his own will and -reason. - - -To Wordsworth in the progression of spirit, once Simonides, or -Empedocles, or both in one-- - -"Oh! that my spirit, purged by death of its weaknesses, which are, alas! -my identity, might flow into thine, and live and act in thee and be -thine!" - - -Death, first of all, eats of the Tree of Life and becomes immortal. -Describe the frightful metamorphosis. He weds the Hamadryad of the Tree -[and begets a twy-form] progeny. This in the manner of Dante. - - -Sad drooping children of a wretched parent are those yellowing leaflets -of a broken twig, broke ere its June. - - -We are not inert in the grave. St. Paul's corn in the ground proves this -scripturally, and the growth of infants in their sleep by natural -analogy. What, then, if our spiritual growth be in proportion to the -length and depth of the sleep! With what mysterious grandeur does not -this thought invest the grave, and how poor compared with this an -immediate Paradise! - - -I awake and find my beloved asleep, gaze upon her by the taper that -feebly illumines the darkness, then fall asleep by her side; and we both -awake together for _good_ and _all_ in the broad daylight of heaven. - - -Forget not to impress as often and as manifoldly as possible the _totus -in omni parte_ of Truth, and its consequent interdependence on -co-operation and, _vice versâ_, the fragmentary character of action, and -its absolute dependence on society, a majority, etc. The blindness to -this distinction creates fanaticism on one side, alarm and prosecution -on the other. Jacobins or soul-gougers. It is an interesting fact or -fable that the stork (the emblem of filial or conjugal piety) never -abides in a monarchy. - - -Commend me to the Irish architect who took out the foundation-stone to -repair the roof. - - -Knox and the other reformers were _Scopæ viarum_--that is, highway -besoms. - - -The Pine Tree blasted at the top was applied by Swift to himself as a -prophetic emblem of his own decay. The Chestnut is a fine shady tree, -and its wood excellent, were it not that it dies away at the _heart_ -first. Alas! poor me! - - -[Sidenote: TASTE, AN ETHICAL QUALITY] - -Modern poetry is characterised by the poets' _anxiety_ to be always -striking. There is the same march in the Greek and Latin poets. -Claudian, who had powers to have been anything--observe in him this -anxious, craving vanity! Every line, nay, every word, stops, looks full -in your face, and asks and _begs_ for praise! As in a Chinese painting, -there are no distances, no perspective, but all is in the foreground; -and this is nothing but vanity. I am pleased to think that, when a mere -stripling, I had formed the opinion that true taste was virtue, and that -bad writing was bad feeling. - - -[Sidenote: A PLEA FOR POETIC LICENSE] - -The desire of carrying things to a greater height of pleasure and -admiration than, _omnibus trutinatis_, they are susceptible of, is one -great cause of the corruption of poetry. Both to understand my own -reasoning and to communicate it, ponder on Catullus' hexameters and -pentameters, his "_numine abusum homines_" [Carmen, lxxvi. 4] [and -similar harsh expressions]. It is not whether or no the very same ideas -expressed with the very same force and the very same naturalness and -simplicity in the versification of Ovid and Tibullus, would not be -still more delightful (though even that, for any number of poems, may -well admit a doubt), but whether it is _possible_ so to express them and -whether, in every attempt, the result has not been to substitute manner -for matter, and point that will not bear reflection (so fine that it -breaks the moment you try it) for genuine sense and true feeling, and, -lastly, to confine both the subjects, thoughts, and even words of poetry -within a most beggarly cordon. _N.B._--The same criticism applies to -Metastasio, and, in Pope, to his quaintness, perversion, unnatural -metaphors, and, still more, the cold-blooded use, for artifice or -connection, of language justifiable only by enthusiasm and passion. - - -[Sidenote: RICHARDSON] - -I confess that it has cost, and still costs, my philosophy some exertion -not to be vexed that I must admire, aye, greatly admire, Richardson. His -mind is so very vile a mind, so oozy, hypocritical, praise-mad, canting, -envious, concupiscent! But to understand and draw _him_ would be to -produce a work almost equal to his own; and, in order to do this, -"_down, proud Heart, down_" (as we teach little children to say to -themselves, bless them!), all hatred down! and, instead thereof, -charity, calmness, a heart fixed on the good part, though the -understanding is surveying all. Richardson felt truly the defect of -Fielding, or what was not his excellence, and made that his _defect_--a -trick of uncharitableness often played, though not exclusively, by -contemporaries. Fielding's talent was observation, not meditation. But -Richardson was not philosopher enough to know the difference--say, -rather, to understand and develop it. - - -[Sidenote: HIS NEED OF EXTERNAL SOLACE] - -O there are some natures which under the most cheerless all-threatening -nothing-promising circumstances can draw hope from the invisible, as the -tropical trees that in the sandy desolation produce their own lidded -vessels full of the waters from air and dew! Alas! to my root not a drop -trickles down but from the watering-pot of immediate friends. And, even -so, it seems much more a sympathy with their feeling rather than hope of -my own. So should I feel sorrow, if Allston's mother, whom I have never -seen, were to die? - - -[Sidenote: MINUTE CRITICISM] - -Stoddart passes over a poem as one of those tiniest of tiny night-flies -runs over a leaf, casting its shadow, three times as long as itself, yet -only just shading one, or at most two letters at a time. - - -[Sidenote: DR. PRICE] - -A maidservant of Mrs. Clarkson's parents had a great desire to hear Dr. -Price, and accordingly attended his congregation. On her return, being -asked "Well, what do you think?" &c., "Ai--i," replied she, "there was -neither the poor nor the Gospel." Excellent that on the fine -_respectable_ attendants of Unitarian chapels, and the moonshine, -heartless head-work of the sermons. - - -[Sidenote: A _DOCUMENT HUMAIN_] - -The mahogany tables, all, but especially the large dining-table, -[marked] with the segments of circles (deep according to the passion of -the dice-box plunger), chiefly half-circles, O the anger and spite with -which many have been thrown! It is truly a written history of the -fiendish passion of gambling. Oct. 12, 1806. Newmarket. - - -[Sidenote: PINDAR] - -The odes of Pindar (with few exceptions, and these chiefly in the -shorter ones) seem by intention to die away by soft gradations into a -languid interest, like most of the landscapes of the great elder -painters. Modern ode-writers have commonly preferred a continued rising -of interest. - - -[Sidenote: "ONE MUSIC AS BEFORE, BUT VASTER"] - -The shattering of long and deep-rooted associations always places the -mind in an angry state, and even when our own understandings have -effected the revolution, it still holds good, only we apply the feeling -to and against our former faith and those who still hold it--[a -tendency] shown in modern infidels. Great good, therefore, of such -revolution as alters, not by exclusion, but by an enlargement that -includes the former, though it places it in a new point of view. - - -[Sidenote: TO ALLSTON] - -After the formation of a new acquaintance, found, by some weeks' or -months' unintermitted communion, worthy of all our esteem, affection -and, perhaps, admiration, an intervening absence, whether we meet again -or only write, raises it into friendship, and encourages the modesty of -our nature, impelling us to assume the language and express all the -feelings of an established attachment. - - -[Sidenote: MORBID SENTIMENT] - -The _thinking_ disease is that in which the feelings, instead of -embodying themselves in _acts_, ascend and become materials of general -reasoning and intellectual pride. The dreadful consequences of this -perversion [may be] instanced in Germany, _e.g._, in Fichte _versus_ -Kant, Schelling _versus_ Fichte and in Verbidigno [Wordsworth] _versus_ -S. T. C. Ascent where nature meant descent, and thus shortening the -process--viz., _feelings_ made the subjects and tangible substance of -thought, instead of actions, realizations, _things done_, and as such -externalised and remembered. On such meagre diet as feelings, evaporated -embryos in their progress to _birth_, no moral being ever becomes -healthy. - - -[Sidenote: "PHANTOMS OF SUBLIMITY"] - -Empires, states, &c., may be beautifully illustrated by a large clump of -coal placed on a fire--Russia, for instance--or of small coal moistened, -and by the first action of the heat of any government not absolutely -lawless, formed into a cake, as the northern nations under -Charlemagne--then a slight impulse from the fall of accident, or the -hand of patriotic foresight, splits [the one] into many, and makes each -[fragment] burn with its own flame, till at length all burning equally, -it becomes again one by universal similar action--then burns low, -cinerises, and without accession of rude materials goes out. - - -[Sidenote: A MILD WINTER] - -Winter slumbering soft, seemed to smile at visions of buds and blooms, -and dreamt so livelily of spring, that his stern visage had relaxed and -softened itself into a dim likeness of his dream. The soul of the vision -breathed through and lay like light upon his face. - -But, heavens! what an outrageous day of winter this is and has been! -Terrible weather for the last two months, but this is horrible! Thunder -and lightning, floods of rain, and volleys of hail, with such frantic -winds. December 1806. - -[This note was written when S. T. C. was staying with Wordsworth at the -Hall Farm, Coleorton.] - - -[Sidenote: MOONLIGHT GLEAMS AND MASSY GLORIES] - -In the first [entrance to the wood] the spots of moonlight of the -wildest outlines, not unfrequently approaching so near to the shape of -man and the domestic animals most attached to him as to be easily -confused with them by fancy and mistaken by terror, moved and started as -the wind stirred the branches, so that it almost seemed like a flight of -recent spirits, sylphs and sylphids dancing and capering in a world of -shadows. Once, when our path was over-canopied by the meeting boughs, as -I halloed to those a stone-throw behind me, a sudden flash of light -dashed down, as it were, upon the path close before me, with such rapid -and indescribable effect that my life seemed snatched away from me--not -by terror but by the whole attention being suddenly and unexpectedly -seized hold of--if one could conceive a violent blow given by an unseen -hand, yet without pain or local sense of injury, of the weight falling -here or there, it might assist in conceiving the feeling. This I found -was occasioned by some very large bird, who, scared by my noise, had -suddenly flown upward, and by the spring of his feet or body had driven -down the branch on which he was aperch. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[Footnote B: When instead of the general feeling of the lifeblood in its -equable individual motion, and the consequent wholeness of the one -feeling of the skin, we feel as if a heap of ants were running over -us--_the one_ corrupting into _ten thousand_--so in _araneosis_, instead -of the one view of the air, or blue sky, a thousand specks, etc., dance -before the eye. The metaphor is as just as, of a metaphor, anyone has a -right to claim, but it is clumsily expressed.] - -[Footnote C: I have the same anxiety for my friend now in England as for -myself, that is to be, or may be, two months hence.] - -[Footnote D: "A prison so constructed that the inspector can see each of -the prisoners at all times without being seen by them."] - - - - -CHAPTER V - -_September 1806--December 1807_ - - Alas! for some abiding-place of love, - O'er which my spirit, like the mother dove, - Might brood with warming wings! - - S. T. C. - - -[Sidenote: DREAMS AND SHADOWS] - -I had a confused shadow rather than an image in my recollection, like -that from a thin cloud, as if the idea were descending, though still in -some measureless height. - - -As when the taper's white cone of flame is seen double, till the eye -moving brings them into one space and then they become one--so did the -idea in my imagination coadunate with your present form soon after I -first gazed upon you. - - - And in life's noisiest hour - There whispers still the ceaseless love of thee, - The heart's self-solace and soliloquy. - - - You mould my hopes, you fashion me within, - And to the leading love-throb in my heart - Through all my being, all my pulses beat. - You lie in all my many thoughts like light, - Like the fair light of dawn, or summer light, - On rippling stream, or cloud-reflecting lake-- - And looking to the Heaven that beams above you, - How do I bless the lot that made me love you! - - -[Sidenote: KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING] - -In all processes of the understanding the shortest way will be -discovered the last and this, perhaps, while it constitutes the great -advantage of having a teacher to put us on the shortest road at the -first, yet sometimes occasions a difficulty in the comprehension, -inasmuch as the longest way is more near to the existing state of the -mind, nearer to what if left to myself, on starting the thought, I -should have thought next. The shortest way gives me the _knowledge_ -best, but the longest makes me more _knowing_. - - -[Sidenote: PARTISANS AND RENEGADES] - -When a party man talks as if he hated his country, saddens at her -prosperous events, exults in her disasters and yet, all the while, is -merely hating the opposite party, and would himself feel and talk as a -patriot were he in a foreign land [_he_ is a party man]. The true -monster is he (and such alas! there are in these monstrous days, -"vollendeter Sündhaftigkeit"), who abuses his country when out of his -country. - - -[Sidenote: POPULACE AND PEOPLE] - -Oh the profanation of the sacred word _the People_! Every brutal -Burdett-led mob, assembled on some drunken St. Monday of faction, is the -People forsooth, and each leprous ragamuffin, like a circle in geometry, -is, at once, one and all, and calls its own brutal self, "_us_ the -People." And who are the friends of the People? Not those who would wish -to elevate each of them, or, at least, the child who is to take his -place in the flux of life and death, into something worthy of esteem and -capable of freedom, but those who flatter and infuriate them, as they -_are_. A contradiction in the very thought! For if, really, they are -good and wise, virtuous and well-informed, how weak must be the motives -of discontent to a truly moral being--but if the contrary, and the -motives for discontent proportionably strong, how without guilt and -absurdity appeal to them as judges and arbiters? He alone is entitled to -a share in the government of all, who has learnt to govern himself. -There is but one possible ground of a right of freedom--viz., to -understand and revere its duties. - -[_Vide Life of S. T. C._, by James Gillman, 1838, p. 223.] - - -[Sidenote: FOR THE "SOOTHER IN ABSENCE." May 28, 1807 Bristol] - -How villainously these metallic pencils have degenerated, not only in -the length and quantity, but what is far worse, in the _quality_ of the -metal! This one appears to have no superiority over the worst sort sold -by the Maltese shopkeepers. - - -Blue sky through the glimmering interspaces of the dark elms at twilight -rendered a lovely deep yellow-green--all the rest a delicate blue. - - -The hay-field in the close hard by the farm-house--babe, and totterer -little more [than a babe]--old cat with her eyes blinking in the sun and -little kittens leaping and frisking over the hay-lines. - - -What an admirable subject for an Allston would Tycho Brahe be, listening -with religious awe to the oracular gabble of the idiot, whom he kept at -his feet, and used to feed with his own hands! - - -The sun-flower ought to be cultivated, the leaves being excellent -fodder, the flowers eminently melliferous, and the seeds a capital food -for poultry, none nourishing quicker or occasioning them to lay more -eggs. - - -Serpentium allapsus timet. Quære--_allapse_ of serpents. _Horace_.--What -other word have we? Pity that we dare not Saxonise as boldly as our -forefathers, by unfortunate preference, Latinised. Then we should have -on-glide, _angleiten_; onlook _anschauen_, etc. - - -I moisten the bread of affliction with the water of adversity. - - -If kings are gods on earth, they are, however, gods of earth. - - -Parisatis poisoned one side of the knife with which he carved, and eat -of the same joint the next slice unhurt--a happy illustration of -affected self-inclusion in accusation. - - -It is possible to conceive a planet without any general atmosphere, but -in which each living body has its peculiar atmosphere. To hear and -understand, one man joins his atmosphere to that of another, and, -according to the sympathies of their nature, the aberrations of sound -will be greater or less, and their thoughts more or less intelligible. A -pretty allegory might be made of this. - - -Two faces, each of a confused countenance. In the eyes of the one, -muddiness and lustre were blended; and the eyes of the other were the -same, but in them there was a red fever that made them appear more -fierce. And yet, methought, the former struck a greater trouble, a fear -and distress of the mind; and sometimes all the face looked meek and -mild, but the eye was ever the same. - -[Qu. S. T. C. and De Quincey?] - - -Shadow--its being subsists in shaped and definite nonentity. - - -Plain sense, measure, clearness, dignity, grace over all--these made the -genius of Greece. - - -Heu! quam miserum ab illo lædi, de quo non possis queri! Eheu! quam -miserrimum est ab illo lædi, de quo propter amorem non possis queri! - - -Observation from Bacon after reading Mr. Sheridan's speech on Ireland: -"Things will have their first or second agitation; if they be not tossed -on the arguments of council, they will be tossed on the waves of -fortune." - - -The death of an immortal has been beautifully compared to an Indian fig, -which at its full height declines its branches to the earth, and there -takes root again. - - -The blast rises and falls, and trembles at its height. - - -A passionate woman may be likened to a wet candle spitting flame. - - -TO LOVE. - -It is a duty, nay, it is a religion to that power to shew that, though -it makes all things--wealth, pleasure, ambition--worthless, yea, noisome -for themselves; yet for _it_self can it produce all efforts, even if -only to secure its name from scoffs as the child and parent of -slothfulness. Works, therefore, of general profit--works of abstruse -thought [will be born of love]; activity, and, above all, virtue and -chastity [will come forth from his presence]. - - -The moulting peacock, with only two of his long tail-feathers remaining, -and those sadly in tatters, yet, proudly as ever, spreads out his ruined -fan in the sun and breeze. - - -Yesterday I saw seven or eight water-wagtails following a feeding horse -in the pasture, fluttering about and hopping close by his hoofs, under -his belly, and even so as often to tickle his nostrils with their pert -tails. The horse shortens the grass and they get the insects. - - -Sic accipite, sic credite, ut mereamini intelligere: fides enim debet -præcedere intellectum, ut sit intellectus fidei præmium. - -_S. August. Sermones De Verb. Dom._ - -Yet should a friend think foully of that wherein the pride of thy -spirit's purity is in shrine. - - O the agony! the agony! - Nor Time nor varying Fate, - Nor tender Memory, old or late, - Nor all his Virtues, great though they be, - Nor all his Genius can free - His friend's soul from the agony! - -[So receive, so believe [divine ideas] that ye may earn the right to -understand them. For faith should go before understanding, in order that -understanding may be the reward of faith.] - - -[Greek: Hote enthousiasmos epineusin tina theian hechein dokei kai tô -mantikô genei plêsiazein.] _Strabo Geographicus._ - -Though Genius, like the fire on the altar, can only be kindled from -heaven, yet it will perish unless supplied with appropriate fuel to feed -it; or if it meet not with the virtues whose society alone can reconcile -it to earth, it will return whence it came, or, at least, lie hid as -beneath embers, till some sudden and awakening gust of regenerating -Grace, [Greek: anazôpyrei], rekindles and reveals it anew. - -[Now the inspiration of genius seems to bear the stamp of Divine assent, -and to attain to something of prophetic strain.] - - -[Sidenote: FALLINGS FROM US, VANISHINGS] - -I trust you are very happy in your domestic being--very; because, alas! -I know that to a man of sensibility and more emphatically if he be a -literary man, there is _no_ medium between that and "the secret pang -that eats away the heart." ... Hence, even in dreams of sleep, the soul -never _is_, because it either cannot or dare not be any _one_ thing, but -lives in _approaches_ touched by the outgoing pre-existent ghosts of -many feelings. It feels for ever as a blind man with his protruded staff -dimly through the medium of the instrument by which it pushes off, and -in the act of repulsion--(O for the eloquence of Shakspere, who alone -could feel and yet know how to embody those conceptions with as curious -a felicity as the thoughts are subtle!)--as if the finger which I saw -with eyes, had, as it were, another finger, invisible, touching me with -a ghostly touch, even while I feared the real touch from it. What if, in -certain cases, touch acted by itself, co-present with vision, yet not -coalescing? Then I should see the finger as at a distance, and yet feel -a finger touching which was nothing but it, and yet was not it. The two -senses cannot co-exist without a sense of causation. The _touch_ must be -the effect of that finger [which] I see, and yet it is not yet near to -me, and therefore it is not it, and yet it is it. Why it is is in an -imaginary pre-duplication! - -_N.B._--There is a passage in the second part of Wallenstein expressing, -not explaining, the same feeling. "The spirits of great events stride on -before the events"--it is in one of the last two or three scenes:-- - - "As the sun, - Ere it is risen, sometimes paints its image - In the atmosphere, so often do the spirits - Of great events, stride on before the events." - - [WALLENSTEIN, Part II., act v. sc. 1. _P. W._, - 1893, p. 351.] - - -[Sidenote: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CLERICAL ERRORS] - -It is worth noting and endeavouring to detect the Law of the Mind, by -which, in writing earnestly while we are thinking, we omit words -necessary to the sense. It will be found, I guess, that we seldom omit -the material word, but generally the word by which the mind expresses -its modification of the _verbum materiale_. Thus, in the preceding page, -7th line, _medium_ is the _materiale_: that was its own brute, inert -sense--but the _no_ is the mind's action, its _use_ of the word. - -I think this a hint of some value. Thus, _the_ is a word in constant -combination with the passive or material words; but _to_ is an act of -the mind, and I had written _the_ detect instead of _to_ detect. Again, -when my sense demanded "the" to express a distinct modification of some -_verbum materiale_, I remember to have often omitted it in writing. The -principle is evident--the mind borrows the _materia_ from without, and -is passive with regard to it as the mere subject "stoff"--a simple event -of memory takes place; but having the other in itself, the inward Having -with its sense of security passes for the outward Having--or is all -memory an anxious act, and thereby suspended by vivid security? or are -both reasons the same? or if not, are they consistent, and capable of -being co-or sub-ordinated? It will be lucky if some day, after having -written on for two or three sheets rapidly and as a first copy, without -correcting, I should by chance glance on this note, not having thought -at all about it during or before the time of writing; and then to -examine every word omitted. - - -[Sidenote: BIBLIOLOGICAL MEMORANDA] - -To spend half-an-hour in Cuthill's shop, examining Stephen's -_Thesaurus_, in order to form an accurate idea of its utilities above -Scapula, and to examine the _Budæo-Tusan-Constantine_, whether it be the -same or as good as Constantine, and the comparative merits of -Constantine with Scapula. - -3. To examine Bosc relatively to Brunck, and to see after the new German -_Anthologia_. - -4. Before I quit town, to buy Appendix (either No. 1430 or 1431), 8_s._ -or 18_s._ What a difference! ten shillings, because the latter, the -Parma Anacreon, is on large paper, green morocco; the former is neat in -red morocco, but the type the same. - -5. To have a long morning's ramble with De Quincey, first to Egerton's, -and then to the book haunts. - -6. To see if I can find that Arrian with Epictetus which I admired so -much at Mr. Leckie's. - -7. To find out D'Orville's _Daphnis_, and the price. Is there no other -edition? no cheap German? - -8. To write out the passage from Strada's _Prolusions_ at Cuthill's. - -9. Aristotle's Works, and to hunt for Proclus. - -10. In case of my speedy death, it would answer to buy a £100 worth of -carefully-chosen books, in order to attract attention to my library and -to give accession to the value of books by their co-existing with -co-appurtenants--as, for instance, Plato, Aristotle; Plotinus, Porphyry, -Proclus: Schoolmen, Interscholastic; Bacon, Hobbes; Locke, Berkeley; -Leibnitz, Spinoza; Kant and the critical Fichte, and Wissenschaftslehre, -Schelling, &c. - -[The first edition of Robert Constantin's _Lexicon Græco-Lat._ was -published at Geneva in 1564. A second ed. _post correctiones_ G. Budæi -et J. Tusani, at Basle, in 1584.] - - -[Sidenote: [Greek: panta rhei]] - -Our mortal existence, what is it but a stoppage in the blood of life, a -brief eddy from wind or concourse of currents in the ever-flowing ocean -of pure Activity, who beholds pyramids, yea, Alps and Andes, giant -pyramids, the work of fire that raiseth monuments, like a generous -victor o'er its own conquest, the tombstones of a world destroyed! Yet -these, too, float adown the sea of Time, and melt away as mountains of -floating ice. - - - -[Sidenote: DISTINCTION IN UNION] - -Has every finite being (or only some) the temptation to become intensely -and wholly conscious of its distinctness and, as a result, to be -betrayed into the wretchedness of _division_? Grosser natures, wholly -swallowed up in selfishness which does not rise to self-love, never even -acquire that sense of distinctness, while, to others, love is the first -step to re-union. It is a by-word that religious enthusiasm borders on -and tends to sensuality--possibly because all our powers work together, -and as a consequence of striding too vastly up the ladder of existence, -a great _round_ of the ladder is omitted, namely, love to some, _Eine -verschiedene_, of our own kind. Then let Religion love, else will it not -only partake of, instead of being partaken by, and so co-adunated with, -the summit of love, but will necessarily include the nadir of love, -that is, appetite. Hence will it tend to dissensualise its nature into -fantastic passions, the idolatry of Paphian priestesses. - - -[Sidenote: IN WONDER ALL PHILOSOPHY BEGAN] - -Time, space, duration, action, active passion passive, activeness, -passiveness, reaction, causation, affinity--here assemble all the -mysteries known. All is known-unknown, say, rather, _merely_ known. All -is unintelligible, and yet Locke and the stupid adorers of that _fetish_ -earth-clod take all for granted. By the bye, in poetry as well as -metaphysics, that which we first meet with in the dawn of our mind -becomes ever after _fetish_, to the many at least. Blessed he who first -sees the morning star, if not the sun, or purpling clouds his -harbingers. Thence is _fame_ desirable to a great man, and thence -subversion of vulgar fetishes becomes a duty. - -Rest, motion! O ye strange locks of intricate simplicity, who shall find -the key? He shall throw wide open the portals of the palace of sensuous -or symbolical truth, and the Holy of Holies will be found in the adyta. -Rest = enjoyment and death. Motion = enjoyment and life. O the depth of the -proverb, "Extremes meet"! - - -[Sidenote: IN A TWINKLING OF THE EYE] - -The "break of the morning"--and from inaction a nation starts up into -motion and wide fellow-consciousness! The trumpet of the Archangel--and -a world with all its troops and companies of generations starts up into -a hundredfold expansion, power multiplied into itself cubically by the -number of all its possible acts--all the potential springing into power. -Conceive a bliss from self-conscience, combining with bliss from -increase of action; the first dreaming, the latter dead-asleep in a -grain of gunpowder--conceive a huge magazine of gunpowder and a flash of -lightning awakes the whole at once. What an image of the resurrection, -grand from its very inadequacy. Yet again, conceive the living, moving -ocean--its bed sinks away from under and the whole world of waters falls -in at once on a thousand times vaster mass of intensest fire, and the -whole prior orbit of the planet's successive revolutions is possessed by -it at once (_Potentia fit actus_) amid the thunder of rapture. - - -[Sidenote: SINE QUÂ NON] - -Form is factitious being, and thinking is the process; imagination the -laboratory in which the thought elaborates essence into existence. A -philosopher, that is, a nominal philosopher without imagination, is a -_coiner_. Vanity, the _froth_ of the molten mass, is his _stuff_, and -verbiage the stamp and impression. This is but a deaf metaphor--better -say that he is guilty of forgery. He presents the same sort of _paper_ -as the honest barterer, but when you carry it to the bank it is found to -be drawn to _Outis_, _Esq._ His words had deposited no forms there, -payable at sight--or even at any imaginable _time_ from the date of the -draft. - - -[Sidenote: SOLVITUR SUSPICIENDO] - -The sky, or rather say, the æther at Malta, with the sun apparently -suspended in it, the eye seeming to pierce beyond and, as it were, -behind it--and, below, the æthereal sea, so blue, so _ein zerflossenes_, -the substantial image, and fixed real reflection of the sky! O! I could -annihilate in a deep moment all possibility of the needle-point, -pin's-head system of the _atomists_ by one submissive gaze! - - -[Sidenote: A GEM OF MORNING] - -A dewdrop, the pearl of Aurora, is indeed a true _unio_. I would that -_unio_ were the word for the dewdrop, and the pearl be called _unio -marinus_. - - -_VER_, _ZER_, AND _AL_ - -O for the power to persuade all the writers of Great Britain to adopt -the _ver_, _zer_, and _al_ of the German! Why not verboil, zerboil; -verrend, zerrend? I should like the very words _verflossen_, -_zerflossen_, to be naturalised: - - And as I looked now feels my soul creative throes, - And now all joy, all sense _zerflows_. - -I do not know, whether I am in earnest or in sport while I recommend -this _ver_ and _zer_; that is, I cannot be sure whether I feel, myself, -anything ridiculous in the idea, or whether the feeling that seems to -imply this be not the effect of my anticipation of and sympathy with the -ridicule of, perhaps, all my readers. - - -[Sidenote: THE LOVER'S HUMILITY] - -To you there are many like me, yet to me there is none like you, and you -are always like yourself. There are groves of night-flowers, yet the -night-flower sees only the moon. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -_1808-1809_ - - Yea, oft alone, - Piercing the long-neglected holy cave - The haunt obscure of old Philosophy, - He bade with lifted torch its starry walls - Sparkle, as erst they sparkled to the flame - Of odorous lamps tended by Saint and Sage. - - S. T. C. - - -[Sidenote: INOPEM ME COPIA FECIT] - -If one thought leads to another, so often does it blot out another. This -I find when having lain musing on my sofa, a number of interesting -thoughts having suggested themselves, I conquer my bodily indolence, and -rise to record them in these books, alas! my only confidants. The first -thought leads me on indeed to new ones; but nothing but the faint memory -of having had these remains of the other, which had been even more -interesting to me. I do not know whether this be an idiosyncrasy, a -peculiar disease, of _my_ particular memory--but so it is with _me_--my -thoughts crowd each other to death. - - -[Sidenote: A NEUTRAL PRONOUN] - -Quære--whether we may not, _nay_ ought not, to use a neutral pronoun -relative, or representative, to the word "Person," where it hath been -used in the sense of _homo_, _mensch_, or noun of the common gender, in -order to avoid particularising man or woman, or in order to express -either sex indifferently? If this be incorrect in syntax, the whole use -of the word Person is lost in a number of instances, or only retained by -some stiff and strange position of words, as--"not letting the _person_ -be aware, _wherein offence has been given_"--instead of--"wherein he or -she has offended." In my [judgment] both the specific intention and -general _etymon_ of "Person" in such sentences, fully authorise the use -of _it_ and _which_ instead of he, she, him, her, who, whom. - - -[Sidenote: THE HUMBLE COMPLAINT OF THE LOVER] - -If love be the genial sun of human nature, unkindly has he divided his -rays [in acting] on me and my beloved! On her hath he poured all his -light and splendour, and my being doth he permeate with his invisible -rays of heat alone. She shines and is cold like the tropic fire-fly--I, -dark and uncomely, would better resemble the cricket in hot ashes. My -soul, at least, might be considered as a cricket eradiating the heat -which gradually cinerising the heart produces the embers and ashes from -among which it chirps out of its hiding-place. - -N.B.--This put in simple and elegant verse, [would pass] as an imitation -of Marini, and of too large a part of the madrigals of Guarini himself. - - -[Sidenote: TRUTH] - -Truth _per se_ is like unto quicksilver, bright, agile, harmless. -Swallow a pound and it will run through unaltered and only, perhaps, by -its weight force down impurities from out the system. But mix and -comminute it by the mineral acid of spite and bigotry, and even truth -becomes a deadly poison--medicinal only when some other, yet deadlier, -lurks in the bones. - - -[Sidenote: LOVE THE INEFFABLE] - -O! many, many are the seeings, hearings, of pure love that have a being -of their own, and to call them by the names of things unsouled and -debased below even their own lowest nature by associations accidental, -and of vicious accidents, is _blasphemy_. What seest thou yonder? The -lovely countenance of a lovely maiden, fervid yet awe-suffering with -devotion--her face resigned to bliss or bale; or a _bit_ of _flesh_; or, -rather, that which cannot be seen unless by him whose very seeing is -more than an act of mere sight--that which refuses all words, because -words being, perforce, generalities do not awake, but really involve -associations of other words as well as other thoughts--but that which I -see, must be felt, be possessed, in and by its sole self! What! shall -the _statuary_ Pygmalion of necessity feel this for every part of the -insensate marble, and shall the lover Pygmalion in contemplating the -living statue, the heart-adored maiden, breathing forth in every look, -every movement, the genial life imbreathed of God, grovel in the mire -and grunt the language of the swinish slaves of the Circe, of vulgar -generality and still more vulgar association? The Polyclete that created -the Aphrodite [Greek: kallipygos], thought in acts, not words--energy -divinely languageless--[Greek: dia ton Logon, ou syn epesi], through -_the_ Word, not with _words_. And what though it met with Imp-fathers -and Imp-mothers and Fiendsips at its christening in its parents' -absence! - - -[Sidenote: THE MANUFACTURE OF PROPHESY] - -One of the causes of superstition, and also of enthusiasm, and, indeed, -of all errors in matters of fact, is the great power with which the -effect acts upon and modifies the remembrance of its cause, at times -even transforming it in the mind. Let _A_ have said a few words to _B_, -which (by some change and accommodation of them to the event in the mind -of _B_) have been remarkably fulfilled; and let _B_ remind _A_ of these -words which he (_A_) had spoken, _A_ will instantly forget all his mood, -motive, and meaning, at the time of speaking them, nay, remember words -he had never spoken, and throw back upon them, from the immediate event, -an imagined fulfillment, a prophetic grandeur--himself, in his own -faith, a seer of no small inspiration. We yet want the growth of a -prophet and self-deceived wonder-worker _step by step_, through all the -stages; and, yet, what ample materials exist for a true and nobly-minded -psychologist! For, in order to make fit use of these materials, he must -love and honour as well as understand human nature--rather, he must love -in order to understand it. - - -[Sidenote: THE CAPTIVE BIRD May 16th, 1808] - -O that sweet bird! where is it? It is encaged somewhere out of sight; -but from my bedroom at the _Courier_ office, from the windows of which I -look out on the walls of the Lyceum, I hear it at early dawn, often, -alas! lulling me to late sleep--again when I awake and all day long. It -is in prison, all its instincts ungratified, yet it feels the influence -of spring, and calls with unceasing melody to the Loves that dwell in -field and greenwood bowers, unconscious, perhaps, that it calls in vain. -O are they the songs of a happy, enduring day-dream? Has the bird hope? -or does it abandon itself to the joy of its frame, a living harp of -Eolus? O that I could do so! - - -Assuredly a thrush or blackbird encaged in London is a far less shocking -spectacle, its encagement a more venial defect of just feeling, than -(which yet one so often sees) a bird in a gay cage in the heart of the -country--yea, as if at once to mock both the poor prisoner and its kind -mother, Nature--in a cage hung up in a tree, where the free birds after -a while, when the gaudy dungeon is no longer a scare, crowd to it, perch -on the wires, drink the water, and peck up the seeds. But of all birds I -most detest to see the nightingale encaged, and the swallow, and the -cuckoo. Motiveless! monstrous! But the robin! O woes' woe! woe!--he, -sweet cock-my-head-and-eye, pert-bashful darling, that makes our kitchen -its chosen cage. - - -[Sidenote: ARCHITECTURE AND CLIMATE] - -If we take into consideration the effect of the climates of the North, -_Gothic_, in contra-distinction to Greek and Græco-Roman architecture, -is rightly so named. Take, for instance, a rainy, windy day, or sleet, -or a fall of snow, or an icicle-hanging frost, and then compare the -total effect of the South European roundnesses and smooth perpendicular -surface with the ever-varying angles and meeting-lines of the -North-European or Gothic styles. - -[The above is probably a dropped sentence from the report of the First -or Second Lecture of the 1818 series. See _Coleridge's Works_ (Harper -and Brothers, 1853), iv. 232-239.] - - -[Sidenote: NEITHER BOND NOR FREE] - -The demagogues address the lower orders as if they were negroes--as if -each individual were an inseparable part of the order, always to remain, -_nolens volens_, poor and ignorant. How different from Christianity, -which for ever calls on us to detach ourselves spiritually not merely -from our rank, but even from our body, and from the whole world of -sense! - - -[Sidenote: THE MAIDEN'S PRIMER] - -The one mighty main defect of female education is that everything is -taught but reason and the means of retaining affection. This--this--O! -it is worth all the rest told ten thousand times:--how to greet a -husband, how to receive him, how never to recriminate--in short, the -power of pleasurable thoughts and feelings, and the mischief of giving -pain, or (as often happens when a husband comes home from a party of old -friends, joyous and full of heart) the love-killing effect of cold, dry, -uninterested looks and manners. - - -[Sidenote: THE HALFWAY HOUSE Wednesday night, May 18th, 1808] - -Let me record the following important remark of Stuart, with whom I -never converse but to receive some distinct and rememberable improvement -(and if it be not remembered, it is the defect of my memory--which, -alas! grows weaker daily--or a fault from my indolence in not noting it -down, as I do this)--that there is a period in a man's life, varying in -various men, from thirty-five to forty-five, and operating most strongly -in bachelors, widowers, or those worst and miserablest widowers, unhappy -husbands, in which a man finds himself at the _top of the hill_, and -having attained, perhaps, what he wishes, begins to ask himself, What is -all this for?--begins to feel the vanity of his pursuits, becomes -half-melancholy, gives in to wild dissipation or self-regardless -drinking; and some, not content with these (not _slow_) poisons, destroy -themselves, and leave their ingenious female or female-minded friends to -fish out some _motive_ for an act which proceeded from a _motive-making_ -impulse, which would have acted even without a motive (even as the -terror[E] in nightmare is a bodily sensation, and though it most often -calls up consonant images, yet, as I know by experience, can take -effect equally without any); or, if not so, yet like gunpowder in a -smithy, though it will not go off without a spark, is _sure_ to receive -one, if not this hour, yet the next. I had _felt_ this truth, but never -saw it before clearly: it came upon me at Malta under the melancholy, -dreadful feeling of finding myself to be _man_, by a distinct division -from boyhood, youth, and "young man." Dreadful was the feeling--till -then life had flown so that I had always been a boy, as it were; and -this sensation had blended in all my conduct, my willing acknowledgment -of superiority, and, in truth, my meeting every person as a superior at -the first moment. Yet if men survive this period, they commonly become -cheerful again. That is a comfort for mankind, _not for me_! - - -[Sidenote: HIS OWN GENIUS] - -My inner mind does not justify the thought that I possess a genius, my -_strength_ is so very small in proportion to my power. I believe that I -first, from internal feeling, made or gave light and impulse to this -important distinction between strength and power, the oak and the tropic -annual, or biennial, which grows nearly as high and spreads as large as -the oak, but in which the _wood_, the _heart_ is wanting--the vital -works vehemently, but the immortal is not with it. And yet, I think, I -must have some analogue of genius; because, among other things, when I -am in company with Mr. Sharp, Sir J. Mackintosh, R. and Sydney Smith, -Mr. Scarlett, &c. &c., I feel like a child, nay, rather like an -inhabitant of another planet. Their very faces all act upon me, -sometimes, as if they were ghosts, but more often as if I were a ghost -among them--at all times as if we were not consubstantial. - - -[Sidenote: NAME IT AND YOU BREAK IT] - -"The class that ought to be kept separate from all others"--and this -said by one of themselves! O what a confession that it is no longer -separated! Who would have said this even fifty years ago? It is the -howling of ice during a thaw. When there is any just reason for saying -this, it ought not to be said, it is already too late. And though it may -receive the assent of the people of "the squares and places," yet what -does that do, if it be the ridicule of all other classes? - - -[Sidenote: THE DANGER OF OVER-BLAMING] - -The general experience, or rather supposed experience, prevails over the -particular knowledge. So many causes oppose man to man, that he _begins_ -by thinking of other men worse than they deserve, and receives his -punishment by at last thinking worse of himself than the truth is. - - -[Sidenote: EXCESS OF SELF-ESTEEM] - -Expressions of honest self-esteem, in which _self_ was only a diagram of -the _genus_, will excite sympathy at the minute, and yet, even among -persons who love and esteem you, be remembered and quoted as ludicrous -instances of strange self-involution. - - -[Sidenote: DEFECT OF SELF-ESTEEM. May 23, 1808] - -Those who think lowliest of themselves, perhaps with a _feeling_ -stronger than rational comparison would justify, are apt to feel and -express undue asperity for the faults and defects of those whom they -habitually have looked up to as to their superiors. For placing -themselves very low, perhaps too low, wherever a series of experiences, -struggled against for a while, have at length convinced the mind that in -such and such a moral habit the long-idolised superior is far below even -itself, the grief and anger will be in proportion. "If even _I_ could -never have done this, O anguish, that _he_, so much my superior, should -do it! If even _I_ with all my infirmities have not this defect, this -selfishness, that _he_ should have it!" This is the course of thought. -Men are bad enough; and yet they often think themselves worse than they -are, among other causes by a reaction from their own uncharitable -thoughts. The poisoned chalice is brought back to our own lips. - - -[Sidenote: A PRACTICAL MAN] - -He was grown, and solid from his infancy, like that most _useful_ of -domesticated animals, that never runs but with some prudent motive to -the mast or the wash-tub and, at no time a slave to the present moment, -never even grunts over the acorns before him without a scheming squint -and the segment, at least, of its wise little eye cast toward those on -one side, which his neighbour is or may be about to enjoy. - - -[Sidenote: LUCUS A NON LUCENDO] - -Quære, whether the high and mighty Edinburghers, &c., have not been -elevated into guardians and overseers of taste and poetry for much the -same reason as St. Cecilia was chosen as the guardian goddess of music, -because, forsooth, so far from being able to compose or play herself, -she could never endure any other instrument than the jew's-harp or -Scotch bag-pipe? No! too eager recensent! you are mistaken, there is no -anachronism in this. We are informed by various antique bas-reliefs that -the bag-pipe was well known to the Romans, and probably, therefore, that -the Picts and Scots were even then fond of seeking their fortune in -other countries. - - -[Sidenote: LOVE AND MUSIC] - -"Love is the spirit of life and music the life of the spirit." - -Q. What is music? A. Poetry in its grand sense! Passion and order at -once! Imperative power in obedience! - -Q. What is the first and divinest strain of music? A.--In the -intellect--"Be able to will that thy maxims (rules of individual -conduct) should be the law of all intelligent being!" - -In the heart, or practical reason, "Do unto others as thou wouldst be -done by." This in the widest extent involves the test, "Love thy -neighbour as thyself, and God above all things." For, conceive thy being -to be all-including, that is, God--thou knowest that _thou_ wouldest -command thyself to be beloved above all things. - -[For the motto at the head of this note see the lines "Ad Vilmum -Axiologum." _P. W._, 1893, p. 138.] - - -[Sidenote: CONSCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY] - -From what reasons do I believe in _continuous_ and ever-continuable -consciousness? From conscience! Not for myself, but for my conscience, -that is, my affections and duties towards others, I should have no -self--for self is definition, but all boundary implies neighbourhood and -is knowable only by neighbourhood or relations. Does the understanding -say nothing in favour of immortality? It says nothing for or against; -but its silence gives consent, and is better than a thousand arguments -such as mere understanding could afford. But miracles! "Do you speak of -them as proofs or as natural consequences of revelation, whose presence -is proof only by precluding the disproof that would arise from their -absence?" "Nay, I speak of them as of positive fundamental proofs." -Then I dare answer you "Miracles in that sense are blasphemies in -morality, contradictions in reason. God the Truth, the actuality of -logic, the very _logos_--He deceive his creatures and demonstrate the -properties of a triangle by the confusion of all properties! If a -miracle merely means an event before inexperienced, it proves only -itself, and the inexperience of mankind. Whatever other definition be -given of it, or rather attempted (for no other not involving direct -contradiction can be given), it is blasphemy. It calls darkness light, -and makes Ignorance the mother of Malignity, the appointed nurse of -religion--which is knowledge as opposed to mere calculating and -conjectural understanding. Seven years ago, but oh! in what happier -times--I wrote thus-- - - O ye hopes! that stir within me! - Health comes with you from above! - God is _with_ me! God is _in_ me! - I _cannot_ die: for life is love! - -And now, that I am alone and utterly hopeless for myself, yet still I -love--and more strongly than ever feel that conscience or the duty of -love is the proof of continuing, as it is the cause and condition of -existing consciousness. How beautiful the harmony! Whence could the -proof come, so appropriately, so conformly with all nature, in which the -cause and condition of each thing is its revealing and infallible -prophecy! - -And for what reason, say, rather, for what cause, do you believe -immortality? Because I _ought_, therefore I _must_! - -[The lines "On revisiting the sea-shore," of which the last stanza is -quoted, were written in August, 1801. [_P.W._, 1893, p. 159.] If the -note was written exactly seven years after the date of that poem, it -must belong to the summer of 1808, when Coleridge was living over the -_Courier_ office in the Strand.] - - -[Sidenote: THE CAP OF LIBERTY] - -Truly, I hope not irreverently, may we apply to the French nation the -Scripture text, "From him that hath nothing shall be taken that which he -hath"--that is, their pretences to being free, which are the same as -nothing. They, the illuminators, the discoverers and sole possessors of -the true philosopher's stone! Alas! it proved both for them and Europe -the _Lapis Infernalis_. - - -[Sidenote: VAIN GLORY] - -Lord of light and fire? What is the universal of man in all, but -especially in savage states? Fantastic ornament and, in general, the -most frightful deformities--slits in the ears and nose, for instance. -What is the solution? Man will not be a mere thing of nature: he will -be and shew himself a power of himself. Hence these violent disruptions -of himself from all other creatures! What they are made, that they -remain--they are Nature's, and wholly Nature's. - - -[Sidenote: CHILDREN OF A LARGER GROWTH] - -Try to contemplate mankind as children. These we love tenderly, because -they are beautiful and happy; we know that a sweet-meat or a top will -transfer their little love for a moment, and that we shall be repelled -with a grimace. Yet we are not offended. - - -[Sidenote: CHYMICAL ANALOGIES] - -I am persuaded that the chymical technology, as far as it was borrowed -from life and intelligence, half-metaphorically, half-mystically, may be -brought back again (as when a man borrows of another a sum which the -latter had previously borrowed of him, because he is too polite to -remind him of a debt) to the use of psychology in many instances, and, -above all, [may be re-adapted to] the philosophy of language, which -ought to be experimentative and analytic of the elements of -meaning--their double, triple, and quadruple combinations, of simple -aggregation or of composition by balance of opposition. - -Thus innocence is distinguished from virtue, and _vice versâ_. In both -of them there is a positive, but in each opposite. A decomposition must -take place in the first instance, and then a new composition, in order -for innocence to become virtue. It loses a positive, and then the base -attracts another different positive, by the higher affinity of the same -base under a different temperature for the latter. - -I stated the legal use of the innocent as opposed to mere _not guilty_ -(he was not only acquitted, but was proved innocent), only to shew the -existence of a _positive_ in the former--by no means as confounding this -use of the word with the moral pleasurable feeling connected with it -when used of little children, maidens, and those who in mature age -preserve this sweet fragrance of vernal life, this mother's gift and -so-seldom-kept keepsake to her child, as she sends him forth into the -world. The distinction is obvious. Law agnizes actions alone, and -character only as presumptive or illustrative of particular action as to -its guilt or non-guilt, or to the commission or non-commission. But our -moral feelings are never pleasurably excited except as they refer to a -state of being--and the most glorious actions do not delight us as -separate acts, or, rather, facts, but as representatives of the being of -the agent--mental stenographs which bring an indeterminate extension -within the field of easy and simultaneous vision, diffused being -rendered visible by condensation. Only for the hero's sake do we exult -in the heroic act, or, rather, the act abstracted from the hero would no -longer appear to us heroic. Not, therefore, solely from the advantage of -poets and historians do the deeds of ancient Greece and Rome strike us -into admiration, while we relate the very same deeds of barbarians as -matters of curiosity, but because in the former we refer the deed to the -individual exaltation of the agent, in the latter only to the physical -result of a given state of society. Compare the [heroism of that] Swiss -patriot, with his bundle of spears turned towards his breast, in order -to break the Austrian pikemen, and that of the Mameluke, related to me -by Sir Alexander Ball, who, when his horse refused to plunge in on the -French line, turned round and _backed_ it on them, with a certainty of -death, in order to effect the same purpose. In the former, the state of -mind arose from reason, morals, liberty, the sense of the duty owing to -the independence of his country, and its continuing in a state -compatible with the highest perfection and development; while the latter -was predicative only of mere animal habit, ferocity, and unreasoned -antipathy to strangers of a different dress and religion. - - -[Sidenote: BOOKS IN THE AIR] - -If, contrary to my expectations--alas! almost, I fear, to my wishes--I -should live, it is my intention to make a catalogue of the Greek and -Latin Classics, and of those who, like the author of the _Argenis_ -[William Barclay, 1546-1605], and Euphormio, Fracastorius, Flaminius, -etc., deserve that name though moderns--and every year to apply all my -book-money to the gradual completion of the collection, and buy no other -books except German, if the continent should be opened again, except -Massinger, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Jonson. The two last I have, I -believe, but imperfect--indeed, B. and F. worthless, the best plays -omitted. It would be a pleasing employment, had I health, to translate -the Hymns of Homer, with a disquisitional attempt to settle the question -concerning the _personality_ of Homer. Such a thing in two volumes, -_well done_, by philosophical notes on the mythology of the Greeks, -distinguishing the sacerdotal from the poetical, and both from the -philosophical or allegorical, fairly grown into two octavos, might go a -good way, if not all the way, to the Bipontine Latin and Greek Classics. - - -[Sidenote: A TURTLE-SHELL FOR HOUSE-HOLD TUB] - -I almost fear that the alteration would excite surprise and uneasy -contempt in Verbidigno's mind (towards one less loved, at least); but -had I written the sweet tale of the "Blind Highland Boy," I would have -substituted for the washing-tub, and the awkward stanza in which it is -specified, the images suggested in the following lines from Dampier's -Travels, vol. i. pp. 105-6:--"I heard of a monstrous green turtle once -taken at the Port Royal, in the Bay of Campeachy, that was four feet -deep from the back to the belly, and the belly six feet broad. Captain -Rock's son, of about nine or ten years of age, went in it as in a boat, -on board his father's ship, about a quarter of a mile from the shore." -And a few lines before--"The green turtle are so called because their -shell is greener than any other. It is very thin and clear, and better -clouded than the Hawksbill, but 'tis used only for _inlays_, being -_extraordinary_ thin." Why might not some mariners have left this shell -on the shore of Loch Leven for a while, about to have transported it -inland for a curiosity, and the blind boy have found it? Would not the -incident be in equal keeping with that of the child, as well as the -image and tone of romantic uncommonness? - -["In deference to the opinion of a friend," this substitution took -place. A promise made to Sara Coleridge to re-instate the washing-tub -was, alas! never fulfilled. See _Poetical Works_ of W. Wordsworth, 1859, -pp. 197, and 200 _footnote_.] - - -[Sidenote: THE TENDER MERCIES OF THE GOOD] - -Tremendous as a Mexican god is a strong sense of duty--separate from an -enlarged and discriminating mind, and gigantic ally disproportionate to -the size of the understanding; and, if combined with obstinacy of -self-opinion and indocility, it is the parent of tyranny, a promoter of -inquisitorial persecution in public life, and of inconceivable misery in -private families. Nay, the very virtue of the person, and the -consciousness that _it_ is sacrificing its own happiness, increases the -obduracy, and selects those whom it best loves for its objects. _Eoque -immitior quia ipse tolerat_ (not _toleraverat_) is its inspiration and -watchword. - - -[Sidenote: HINTS FOR "THE FRIEND"] - -A nation of reformers looks like a scourer of silver-plate--black all -over and dingy, with making things white and brilliant. - - -A joint combination of authors leagued together to declaim for or -against liberty may be compared to Buffon's collection of smooth mirrors -in a vast fan arranged to form one focus. May there not be gunpowder as -well as corn set before it, and the latter will not thrive, but become -cinders? - - -A good conscience and hope combined are like fine weather that -reconciles travel with delight. - - -Great exploits and the thirst of honour which they inspire, enlarge -states by enlarging hearts. - - -The rejection of the love of glory without the admission of Christianity -is, truly, human darkness lacking human light. - - -Heaven preserve me from the modern epidemic of a proud ignorance! - - -Hypocrisy, the deadly crime which, like Judas, kisses Hell at the lips -of Redemption. - - -Is't then a mystery so great, what God and the man, and the world is? -No, but we hate to hear! Hence a mystery it remains. - - -The massy misery so prettily hidden with the gold and silver -leaf--_bracteata felicitas_. - - -[Sidenote: CONCERNING BELLS] - -If I have leisure, I may, perhaps, write a wild rhyme on the _Bell_, -from the mine to the belfry, and take for my motto and Chapter of -Contents, the two distichs, but especially the latter-- - - Laudo Deum verum, plebem voco, congrego clerum: - Defunctos ploro, pestem fugo, festa decoro. - Funera plango, fulgura frango, sabbata pango: - Excito lentos, dissipo ventos, paco cruentos. - - -The waggon-horse _celsâ cervice eminens clarumque jactans -tintinnabulum_. Item, the cattle on the river, and valley of dark pines -and firs in the Hartz. - - -The army of Clotharius besieging Sens were frightened away by the bells -of St. Stephen's, rung by the contrivance of Lupus, Bishop of Orleans. - - -For ringing the largest bell, as a Passing-bell, a high price was wont -to be paid, because being heard afar it both kept the evil spirits at a -greater distance, and gave the chance of the greater number of prayers -_pro mortuo_, from the pious who heard it. - - -Names of saints were given to bells that it might appear the voice of -the Saint himself calling to prayer. Man will humanise all things. - -[It is strange that Coleridge should make no mention of Schiller's "Song -of the Bell," of which he must, at any rate, have heard the title. -Possibly the idea remained though its source was forgotten. The Latin -distichs were introduced by Longfellow in his "Golden Legend." - -Of the cow-bells in the Hartz he gives the following account in an -unpublished letter to his wife. April-May, 1799. "But low down in the -valley and in little companies on each bank of the river a multitude of -green conical fir-trees, with herds of cattle wandering about almost -every one with a cylindrical bell around its neck, of no inconsiderable -size. And as they moved, scattered over the narrow vale, and up among -the trees of the hill, the noise was like that of a great city in the -stillness of the Sabbath morning, where all the steeples, all at once -are ringing for Church. The whole was a melancholy scene and quite new -to me."] - -FOOTNOTES: - -[Footnote E: - - [O heaven, 'twas frightful! now run down and stared at - By shapes more ugly than can be remembered-- - Now seeing nothing and imagining nothing, - But only being afraid--stifled with Fear! - And every goodly, each familiar form - Had a strange somewhat that breathed terrors on me! - -(_From my MS. tragedy_ [S. T. C.]) _Remorse_, iv. 69-74--but the passage -is omitted from _Osorio_, act iv. 53 _sq. P. W._, pp. 386-499]]. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -_1810_ - - O dare I accuse - My earthly lot as guilty of my spleen, - Or call my destiny niggard! O no! no! - It is her largeness, and her overflow, - Which being incomplete, disquieteth me so! - - S. T. C. - - -[Sidenote: A PIOUS ASPIRATION] - -My own faculties, cloudy as they may be, will be a sufficient direction -to me in plain daylight, but my friend's wish shall be the pillar of -fire to guide me darkling in my nightly march through the wilderness. - - -[Sidenote: THOUGHT AND ATTENTION] - -Thought and attention are very different things. I never expected the -former, (viz., _selbst-thätige Erzeugung dessen, wovon meine Rede war_) -from the readers of _The Friend_. I did expect the latter, and was -disappointed. Jan. 3, 1810. - -This is a most important distinction, and in the new light afforded by -it to my mind, I see more plainly why mathematics cannot be a -substitute for logic, much less for metaphysics, that is, -transcendental logic, and why, therefore, Cambridge has produced so few -men of genius and original power since the time of Newton. Not only it -does not call forth the balancing and discriminating power [_that_ I saw -long ago] but it requires only _attention,_ not _thought_ or -self-production. - - -[Sidenote: LAW AND GOSPEL] - -"The man who squares his conscience by the law" was, formerly, a phrase -for a prudent villain, an unprincipled coward. At present the law takes -in everything--the things most incongruous with its nature, as the moral -motive, and even the feelings of sensibility resulting from accidents of -cultivation, novel-reading for instance. If, therefore, _at all_ times, -the law would be found to have a much greater influence on the actions -of men than men generally suppose, or the agents were themselves -conscious of, this influence we must expect to find augmented at the -present time in proportion to the encroachments of the law on religion, -the moral sense, and the sympathies engendered by artificial rank. -Examine this and begin, for instance, with reviews, and so on through -the common legal immoralities of life, in the pursuits and pleasures of -the higher half of the middle classes of society in Great Britain. - - -[Sidenote: CATHOLIC REUNION] - -"Hence (_i.e._, from servile and thrall-like fear) men came to scan the -Scriptures by the letter and in the covenant of our redemption magnified -the external signs more than the quickening power of the -Spirit."--MILTON'S _Review of Church Government_, vol. i. p. 2. - -It were not an unpleasing fancy, nor one wholly unworthy of a serious -and charitable Christianity, to derive a shadow of hope for the -conversion and purification of the Roman Apostasy from the conduct and -character of St. Peter as shadowing out the history of the Latin Church, -whose ruling pastor calls himself the successor of that saint. Thus, by -proud _humility_, he hazarded the loss of his heavenly portion in -objecting to Christ's taking upon himself a lowly office and character -of a servant (hence the pomps and vanities with which Rome has tricked -out her bishops, &c.), the eager drawing of the fleshly sword in defence -of Christ; the denying of Christ at the cross (in the apostasy); but, -finally, his bitter repentance at the third crowing of the cock (perhaps -Wickliffe and Huss the first, Luther the second, and the third yet to -come-or, perhaps Wickliffe and Luther the first, the second may be the -present state of humiliation, and the third yet to come). After this her -eyes will be opened to the heavenly vision of the universal acceptance -of Christ of all good men of all sects, that is, that faith is a moral, -not an intellectual act. - - -[Sidenote: THE IDEAL MARRIAGE] - -On some delightful day in early spring some of my countrymen hallow the -anniversary of their marriage, and with love and fear go over the -reckoning of the past and the unknown future. The wife tells with -half-renewed modesty all the sweet feelings that she disguised and -cherished in the courting-time; the man looks with a tear full in his -eye and blesses the hour when for the first time (and oh! let it be the -last) he spake deep and solemn to a beloved being--"Thou art mine and I -am thine, and henceforward I shield and shelter [thee] against the -world, and thy sorrows shall be my sorrows, and though abandoned by all -men, we two will abide together in love and duty." - -In the holy eloquent solitude where the very stars that twinkle seem to -be a _voice_ that suits the dream, a voice of a dream, a voice soundless -and yet for the _ear_ not the _eye_ of the soul, when the winged soul -passes over vale and mountain, sinks into glens, and then climbs with -the cloud, and passes from cloud to cloud, and thence from sun to -sun--never is she alone. Always one, the dearest, accompanies and even -when he melts, diffused in the blue sky, she melts at the same moment -into union with the beloved. - - -[Sidenote: A SUPERFLUOUS ENTITY] - -That our religious faiths, by the instincts which lead us to -metaphysical investigation, are founded in a practical necessity, not a -mere intellectual craving after knowledge, and systematic conjecture, is -evinced by the interest which all men take in the questions of future -existence, and the being of God; while even among those who are -speculative by profession a few phantasts only have troubled themselves -with the questions of pre-existence, or with attempts to demonstrate the -_posse_ and _esse_ of a devil. But in the latter case more is involved. -Concerning pre-existence men in general have neither care nor belief; -but a devil is taken for granted, and, if we might trust words, with the -same faith as a Deity--"He neither believes God or devil." And yet, -while we are delighted in hearing proofs of the one, we never think of -asking a simple question concerning the other. This, too, originates in -a practical source. The Deity is not a mere solution of difficulties -concerning origination, but a truth which spreads light and joy and hope -and certitude through all things--while a devil _is_ a mere solution of -an enigma, an assumption to silence our uneasiness. That end answered -(and most easily are such ends answered), we have no further concern -with it. - - -[Sidenote: PSYCHOLOGY IN YOUTH AND MATURITY] - -The _great change_--that in youth and early manhood we psychologise and -with enthusiasm but all out of ourselves, and so far ourselves only as -we descry therein some general law. Our own self is but the diagram, the -triangle which represents all triangles. Afterward we pyschologise out -of others, and so far as they differ from ourselves. O how hollowly! - - -[Sidenote: HAIL AND FAREWELL!] - -We have been for many years at a great distance from each other, but -that may happen with no real breach of friendship. All intervening -nature is the _continuum_ of two good and wise men. We are now -separated. You have combined arsenic with your gold, Sir Humphry! You -are brittle, and I will rather dine with Duke Humphry than with you. - - -[Sidenote: A GENUINE "ANECDOTE"] - -Sara Coleridge says, on telling me of the universal sneeze produced on -the lasses while shaking my carpet, that she wishes my snuff would -_grow_, as I sow it so plentifully! - -[This points to the summer of 1810, the five months spent at Greta Hall -previous to the departure south with Basil Montagu.] - - -[Sidenote: SPIRITUAL RELIGION] - -A thing cannot be one _and_ three at the same time! True! but _time_ -does not apply to God. He is neither one in time nor three in time, for -he exists not in time at all--the Eternal! - -The truly religious man, when he is not conveying his feelings and -beliefs to other men, and does not need the medium of words--O! how -little does he find in his religious sense either of form or of -number--it is _infinite_! Alas! why do we all seek by instinct for a -God, a supersensual, but because we feel the insufficiency, the -unsubstantiality of all _forms_, and formal being for itself. And shall -we explain _a_ by _x_ and then _x_ by _a_--give a soul to the body, and -then a body to the soul--_ergo_, a body to the body--feel the weakness -of the weak, and call in the strengthener, and then make the very -weakness the substratum of the strength? This is worse than the poor -Indian! Even he does not make the tortoise support the elephant, and yet -put the elephant under the tortoise! - -But we are too social, we become in a sort idolaters--for the means we -are obliged to use to excite notions of truth in the minds of others we -by witchcraft of slothful association impose on ourselves for the truths -themselves. Our intellectual bank stops payment, and we pass an act by -acclamation that hereafter the paper promises shall be the gold and -silver itself--and ridicule a man for a dreamer and reviver of -antiquated dreams who believes that gold and silver exist. This may do -as well in the market, but O! for the universal, for the man himself the -difference is woeful. - - -[Sidenote: TRUTH] - -The immense difference between being glad to find Truth _it_, and to -find _it_ TRUTH! O! I am ashamed of those who praise me! For I know that -as soon as I tell them my mind on another subject, they will shrink and -abhor me. For not because I enforced a truth were they pleased in the -first instance, but because I had supported a favourite notion of theirs -which they loved for its and their sake, and therefore would be glad to -find it true--not that loving Truth they loved this opinion as one of -its forms and consequences. The root! the root must be attacked! - - -[Sidenote: A TIME TO CRY OUT] - -Among the evils that attend a conscientious author who writes in a -corrupt age, is the necessity he is under of exposing himself even to -plausible charges of envy, mortified vanity, and, above all, of -self-conceit before those whose bad passions would make even the most -improbable charges plausible. - -What _can_ he do? Tell the truth, and the whole truth plainly, and with -the natural affection which it inspires, and keeping off (difficult -task!) all _scorn_ (for to suppress resentment is easy), let him trust -the bread to the waters in the firm faith that wisdom shall be justified -by her children. Vanity! self-conceit! What vanity, what self-conceit? -What say I more than this? Ye who think and feel the same will love and -esteem me by the law of sympathy, and _value_ me according to the -comparative effect I have made on your intellectual powers, in enabling -you better to defend before others, or more clearly to _onlook_ -(_anschauen_) in yourselves the truths to which your noblest being bears -witness. The rest I leave to the judgment of posterity, utterly -unconcerned whether _my name_ be attached to these opinions or (_my_ -writings forgotten) another man's. - -But what can I say, when I have declared my abhorrence of the _Edinburgh -Review_? In vain should I tell my critics that were I placed on the rack -I could not remember ten lines of my own poems, and that on seeing my -own name in their abuse, I regard it only as a symbol of Wordsworth and -Southey, and that I am well aware that from utter disregard and oblivion -of anything and all things which they can know of me by experience, my -name is mentioned only because they have heard that I was Wordsworth's -and Southey's friend. - - -[Sidenote: HINTS FOR "THE FRIEND"] - -The brightest luminaries of earth give names to the dusky spots in the -selenography of Helvetius. - - -The intrepidity of a pure conscience and a simple principle [may be] -compared to a life-boat, and somewhat in the detail, stemming with a -little rudder the tumbling ruins of the sea, rebounding from the rocks -and shelves in fury. - - -Duns Scotus affirms that the certainty of faith is the greatest -certainty--a dark speech which is explained and proved by the dependence -of the theoretic powers on the practical. But Aristotle admits that -demonstrated truths are inferior in kind of certainty to the -indemonstrable out of which the former are deduced. - - -Faithful, confident reliance on man and on God is the last and hardest -virtue! And wherefore? Because we must first have earned a FAITH in -ourselves. Let the conscience pronounce: "Trust in thyself!" Let the -whole heart be able to say, "I trust in myself," and those whomever we -_love_ we shall rely on, in proportion to that love. - - -A testy patriot might be pardoned for saying with Falstaff, when Dame -Quickly told him "She came from the two parties, forsooth," "The Devil -take one party and his Dam the other." John Bull has suffered more for -their sake, more than even the supererogatory cullibility of his -disposition is able to bear. - - -Lavater fixed on the simplest physiognomy in his whole congregation, and -pitched his sermon to his comprehension. Narcissus either looks at or -thinks of his looking glass, for the same wise purpose I presume. - - -Reviewers resemble often the English jury and the Italian conclave, they -are incapable of eating till they have condemned or craned. - - -The Pope [may be compared to] an old lark, who, though he leaves off -soaring and singing in the height, yet has his spurs grow longer and -sharper the older he grows. - - -Let us not, because the foliage waves in necessary obedience to every -breeze, fancy that the tree shakes also. Though the slender branch bend, -one moment to the East and another to the West, its motion is -circumscribed by its connection with the unyielding trunk. - - -[Sidenote: A HINT FOR "CHRISTABEL"] - -My first cries mingled with my mother's death-groan, and she beheld the -vision of glory, ere I the earthly sun. When I first looked up to Heaven -consciously, it was to look up after, or for, my mother. - - -[Sidenote: "ALL THOUGHTS ALL PASSIONS ALL DELIGHTS"] - -The two sweet silences--first in the purpling dawn of love-troth, when -the heart of each ripens in the other's looks within the unburst calyx, -and fear becomes so sweet that it seems but a fear of losing hope in -certainty; the second, when the sun is setting in the calm eve of -confident love, and [the lovers] in mute recollection enjoy each other. -"I fear to speak, I fear to hear you speak, so deeply do I now enjoy -your presence, so totally possess you in myself, myself in you. The very -sound would break the union and separate _you-me_ into you and me. We -both, and this sweet room, its books, its furniture, and the shadows on -the wall slumbering with the low, quiet fire are all _our_ thought, one -harmonious imagery of forms distinct on the still substance of one deep -feeling, love and joy--a lake, or, if a stream, yet flowing so softly, -so unwrinkled, that its flow is life, not change--that state in which -all the individuous nature, the distinction without division of a vivid -thought, is united with the sense and substance of intensest reality." - -And what if joy pass quick away? Long is the track of Hope before--long, -too, the track of recollection after, as in the Polar spring the sun [is -seen in the heavens] sixteen days before it really rises, and in the -Polar autumn ten days after it has set; so Nature, with Hope and -Recollection, pieces out our short summer. - - -[Sidenote: WORDS AND THINGS] - -N.B.--In my intended essay in defence of punning (Apology for -Paronomasy, _alias_ Punning), to defend those turns of words-- - - Che l'onda chiara, - El'ombra non men cara-- - -in certain styles of writing, by proving that language itself is formed -upon associations of this kind--that possibly the _sensus genericus_ of -whole classes of words may be thus deciphered (as has indeed been -attempted by Mr. White, of Clare Hall), that words are not mere symbols -of things and thoughts, but themselves things, and that any harmony in -the things symbolised will perforce be presented to us more easily, as -well as with additional beauty, by a correspondent harmony of the -symbols with each other. Thus, _heri vidi fragilem frangi, hodie -mortalem mori_; Gestern seh ich was gebrechliches brechen, heute was -sterbliches sterben, compared with the English. This the beauty of -homogeneous languages. So _Veni, vidi, vici_. - -[This note follows an essay on Giambattista Strozzi's Madrigals, -together with a transcription of twenty-seven specimens. The substance -of the essay is embodied in the text of Chapter xvi. of the "Biographia -Literaria," and a long footnote. The quotation is from the first -madrigal, quoted in the note, which is not included in those transcribed -in Notebook 17.--_Coleridge's Works_, iii. (Harper & Brothers, 1853), -pp. 388-393.] - - -[Sidenote: ASSOCIATION] - -Important suggestion on 4th March, 1810 (Monday night). The law of -association clearly begins in common causality. How continued but by a -_causative power_ in the soul? What a proof of _causation_ and _power_ -from the very law of mind, and cluster of facts adduced by Hume to -overthrow it! - - -[Sidenote: COROLLARY] - -It is proud ignorance that, as a disease of the mind, alone superinduces -the necessity of the _medium_ of metaphysical philosophy. The errors -into which a sound, unaffected mind is led by the nature of things -(Thing as the substratum of power)--no errors at all, any more than the -motion of the sun. "So it _appears_"--and that is most true--but when -pride will work up these phenomena into a _system_ of _things in -themselves_, then they become most pernicious errors, and it is the duty -of true mind to examine these with all the virtues of the -intellect--patience, humility, etc. - - -[Sidenote: MOTHER WIT] - -"By aid of a large portion of mother's wit, Paine, though an unlearned -man, saw the absurdity of the Christian religion." Mother's wit, indeed! -Wit from his mother the earth--the earthy and material wit of the -_flesh_ and its lusts. One ounce of mother-wit may be worth a pound of -learning, but a grain of the Father's wisdom is worth a ton of -mother-wit--yea! of both together. - - -[Sidenote: OF EDUCATION] - -"O it is but an infant! 'tis but a child! he will be better as he grows -older." "O! she'll grow ashamed of it. This is but waywardness." Grant -all this--that _they_ will _out_grow these particular actions, yet with -what HABITS of _feeling_ will they arrive at youth and manhood? -Especially with regard to obedience, how is it possible that they should -struggle against the boiling passions of youth by means of obedience to -their own conscience who are to meet the dawn of conscience with the -broad meridian of disobedience and habits of self-willedness? Besides, -when are the rebukes, the chastisements to commence? Why! about nine or -ten, perhaps, when, for the father at least, [the child] is less a -plaything--when, therefore, anger is not healed up in its mind, either -by its own infant versatility and forgetfulness, or by after -caresses--when everything is remembered individually, and sense of -injustice felt. For the boy very well remembers the different treatment -when he was a child; but what has been so long permitted becomes a right -to him. Far better, in such a case, to have them sent off to others--a -strict schoolmaster--than to breed that contradiction of feeling toward -the same person which subverts the very _principle_ of our impulses. -Whereas, in a tender, yet obedience-exacting and improvement-enforcing -education, though very gradually, and by small doses at a time, yet -always going on--yea! even from a twelvemonth old--at six or seven the -child really has outgrown all things that annoy, just at the time when, -as the charm of infancy begins to diminish, they would begin really to -annoy. - - -[Sidenote: THE DANGERS OF ADAPTING TRUTH TO THE MINDS OF THE VULGAR] - -There are, in every country, times when the few who know the truth have -clothed it for the vulgar, and addressed the vulgar in the vulgar -language and modes of conception, in order to convey any part of the -truth. This, however, could not be done with safety, even to the -_illuminati_ themselves in the first instance; but to their successors, -habit gradually turned lie into belief, partial and _stagnate_ truth -into ignorance, and the teachers of the vulgar (like the Franciscan -friars in the South of Europe) became a part of the vulgar--nay, because -the laymen were open to various impulses and influences, which their -instructors had built out (compare a brook in open air, liable to -rainstreams and rills from new-opened fountains, to the same running -through a mill guarded by sluice-gates and back-water), they became the -vulgarest of the vulgar, till, finally, resolute not to detach -themselves from the mob, the mob at length detaches itself from them, -and leaves the mill-race dry, the moveless, rotten wheels as -day-dormitories for bats and owls, and the old grindstones for wags and -scoffers of the taproom to whet their wits on. - - -[Sidenote: POETRY AND PROSE] - -When there are few literary men, and the vast 999999/10000000 of the -population are ignorant, as was the case of Italy from Dante to -Metastasio, _from causes I need not here put down, there will be a -poetical language_; but that a poet ever uses a word as poetical--that -is, formally--which he, in the same mood and thought, would not use in -prose or conversation, Milton's Prose Works will assist us in -disproving. But as soon as literature becomes common, and critics -numerous in any country, and a large body of men seek to express -themselves habitually in the most precise, sensuous, and impassioned -words, the difference as to mere words ceases, as, for example, the -German prose writers. Produce to me _one_ word out of Klopstock, -Wieland, Schiller, Goethe, Voss, &c., which I will not find as -frequently used in the most energetic prose writers. The sole difference -in style is that poetry demands a severe keeping--it admits nothing that -prose may not often admit, but it oftener rejects. In other words, it -presupposes a more continuous state of passion. _N.B._--Provincialisms -of poets who have become the supreme classics in countries one in -language but under various states and governments have aided this false -idea, as, in Italy, the Tuscanisms of Dante, Ariosto, and Alfieri, -foolishly imitated by Venetians, Romans, and Neapolitans. How much this -is against the opinion of Dante, see his admirable treatise on "Lingua -Volgare Nobile," the first, I believe, of his prose or _prose and verse_ -works; for the "Convito" and "La Vita Nuova" are, one-third, in metre. - - -[Sidenote: WORLDLY WISE] - -I would strongly recommend Lloyd's "State Worthies" [_The Statesmen and -Favourites of England since the Reformation._ By David Lloyd. London, -1665-70] as the manual of every man who would rise in the world. In -every twenty pages it recommends contradictions, but he who cannot -reconcile them for himself, and discover which suits his plan, can never -rise in the world. _N.B._--I have a mind to draw a complete character of -a worldly-wise man out of Lloyd. He would be highly-finished, useful, -honoured, popular--a man revered by his children, his wife, and so -forth. To be sure, he must not expect to be _beloved_ by _one_ -proto-friend; and, if there be truth in reason or Christianity, he will -go to hell--but, even so, he will doubtless secure himself a most -respectable place in the devil's chimney-corner. - - -[Sidenote: HINTS FOR "THE FRIEND"] - -The falseness of that so very common opinion, "Mathematics, aye, that is -something! that has been useful--but metaphysics!" Now fairly compare -the two, what each has really done. - -But [be thou] only concerned to find out truth, which, on what side -soever it appears, is always _victory_ to every honest mind. - - -Christianity, too (as well as Platonism and the school of Pythagoras), -has its esoteric philosophy, or why are we forbidden to cast pearls -before swine? But who are the swine? Are they the poor and despised, the -unalphabeted in worldly learning? O, no! the rich whose hearts are -steeled by ignorance of misery and habits of receiving slavish -obedience--the dropsical learned and the St. Vitus' [bewitched] -sciolist. - - -In controversy it is highly useful to know whether you are really -addressing yourself to an opponent or only to partisans, with the -intention of preserving them firm. Either is well, but they should never -be commingled. - - -In her letter to Lord Willoughby Queen Elizabeth hath the word "eloign." -There is no exact equivalent in modern use. Neither "withdraw" or -"absent" are precisely synonymous. - - -We understand Nature just as if, at a distance, we looked at the image -of a person in a looking-glass, plainly and fervently discoursing, yet -what he uttered we could decipher only by the motion of the lips or by -his mien. - - -I must extract and transcribe from the preface to the works of -Paracelsus that eloquent defence of technical new words and of old words -used in a new sense. The whole preface is exceedingly lively, and -(excepting the mountebank defence of intentional obscurity and the -attack on logic, as if it were ever intended to be an organon of -discovery of material truth and directly, instead of a formal -preliminary assisting the mind indirectly, and showing what cannot be -truth, and what has not been proved truth,) very just. - - -The Chinese call the monsoon whirlwind, when more than usually fierce, -the elephant. This is a fine image--a mad wounded war-elephant. - - -The poor oppressed Amboynese, who bear with patience the extirpation of -their clove and nutmeg trees, in their fields and native woods, and the -cruel taxes on sugar, their staff of life, will yet, at once and -universally, rise up in rebellion and prepare to destroy in despair all -and everything, themselves included, if any attempt is made to destroy -any individual's Tatanaman, the clove-tree which each Amboynese plants -at the birth of each of his children. Very affecting! - - -[Sidenote: GENIUS] - -The man of genius places things in a new light. This trivial phrase -better expresses the appropriate effects of genius than Pope's -celebrated distich-- - - "What oft was thought but ne'er so well exprest." - -It has been thought distinctly, but only possessed, as it were, unpacked -and unsorted. The poet not only displays what, though often seen in its -unfolded mass, had never been opened out, but he likewise adds -something, namely, light and relations. Who has not seen a rose, or -sprig of jasmine or myrtle? But behold those same flowers in a posy or -flower-pot, painted by a man of genius, or assorted by the hand of a -woman of fine taste and instinctive sense of beauty! - - -[Sidenote: LOVE] - -To find our happiness incomplete without the happiness of some other -given person or persons is the definition of affection in general, and -applies equally to friendship, to the parental and to the conjugal -relations. But what is love? Love as it may subsist between two persons -of different senses? This--and what more than this? The mutual -dependence of their happiness, each on that of the other, each being at -once cause and effect. You, therefore, I--I, therefore you. The sense of -this reciprocity of well-being, is that which first stamps and -legitimates the name of happiness in all the other advantages and -favourable accidents of nature, or fortune, without which they would -change their essence and become like the curse of Tantalus, insulting -remembrances of misery, of that most unquiet of all miseries, means of -happiness blasted and transformed by incompleteness, nay, by the loss of -the sole organ through which we could enjoy them. - -Suppose a wide and delightful landscape, and what the eye is to the -light, and the light to the eye, that interchangeably is the lover to -the beloved. "O best beloved! who lovest _me_ the best!" In strictest -propriety of application might he thus address her, if only she with -equal truth could echo the same sense in the same feeling. "Light of -mine eye! by which alone I not only see all I see, but which makes up -more than half the loveliness of the objects seen, yet, still, like the -rising sun in the morning, like the moon at night, remainest thyself and -for thyself, the dearest, fairest form of all the thousand forms that -derive from thee all their visibility, and borrow from thy presence -their chiefest beauty!" - - -[Sidenote: COTTLE'S "FREE VERSION OF THE PSALMS"] - -Diamond + oxygen = charcoal. Even so on the fire-spark of his zeal did -Cottle place the King-David diamonds, and caused to pass over them the -oxygenous blast of his own inspiration, and lo! the diamond becomes a -bit of charcoal. - - -[Sidenote: FRIENDSHIP AND MARRIAGE] - - "Ich finde alles eher auf der Erde, so gar Wahrheit und Freude, - als Freundschaft."--JEAN PAUL.[F] - -This for the motto--to examine and attest the fact, and then to explain -the reason. First, then, there are the extraordinary qualifications -demanded for true friendship, arising from the multitude of causes that -make men delude themselves and attribute to friendship what is only a -similarity of pursuit, or even a mere dislike of feeling oneself alone -in anything. But, secondly, supposing the friendship to be as real as -human nature ordinarily permits, yet how many causes are at constant war -against it, whether in the shape of violent irruptions or unobserved yet -constant wearings away by dyspathy, &c. Exemplify this in youth and then -in manhood. First, there is the influence of wives, how frequently -deadly to friendship, either by direct encroach, or, perhaps, -intentional plans of alienation! Secondly, there is the effect of -families, by otherwise occupying the heart; and, thirdly, the action of -life in general, by the worldly-wise, chilling effects of prudential -anxieties. - -Corollary. These reflections, however, suggest an argument in favour of -the existing indissolubility of marriage. - -To be compelled to make it up, or consent to be miserable and -disrespected, is indeed a coarse plaister for the wounds of love, but so -it must be while the patients themselves are of coarse make and -unhealthy humours. - - -[Sidenote: IMAGINATION] - -His imagination, if it must be so called, is at all events of the -pettiest kind--it is an _imaginunculation_. How excellently the German -_Einbildungskraft_ expresses this prime and loftiest faculty, the -power of co-adunation, the faculty that forms the many into -one--_In-eins-bildung!_ Eisenoplasy, or esenoplastic power, is -contradistinguished from fantasy, or the mirrorment, either catoptric or -metoptric--repeating simply, or by transposition--and, again, -involuntary [fantasy] as in dreams, or by an act of the will. - -[See _Biog. Lit._, cap. x.; _Coleridge's Works_, iii. 272. See also -_Blackwood's Magazine_, March 1840, No. ccxciii., Art. The Plagiarisms -of S. T. Coleridge.] - - -[Sidenote: PUBLIC OPINION AND THE SERVICES] - -Ministers, as in the Admiralty, or War Office, compared to managers of -theatres. The numerous absurd claims at length deaden their sense of -judgment to real merit, and superinduce in the mind an anticipation of -clamorous vanity. Hence the great importance of the public voice, -forcing them to be just. This, how illustrated by the life of -Nelson--the infamous coldness with which all his claims were -received--especially Mr. Wyndham's answer, July 21, 1795. And no wonder! -for such is the state of moral feeling even with the English public, -that an instance of credulity to an ingenious scheme which has failed in -the trial will weigh more heavily on a minister's character than to have -stifled in the birth half-a-dozen such men as Nelson or Cochrane, or -such schemes as that of a floating army. Nelson's life is a perpetual -comment on this. - - -[Sidenote: SERMONS ANCIENT AND MODERN] - -Of moral discourses and fine moral discussions in the pulpit--"none of -your Methodist stuff for me." And, yet, most certain it is, that never -were either ministers or congregations so strict in all morality as at -the time when nothing but fine _moral_ discourses (that is calculations -in self-love) would have driven a preacher from the pulpit--and when -the clergy thought it their pulpit-duty to preach Christ and Him -crucified, and the why and the wherefore--and that the soberest, -law-obeying, most prudent nation in the world would need Him as much as -a nation of drunkards, thieves and profligates. How was this? Why, I -take it, those old parsons thought, very wisely, that the pulpit was the -place for truths that applied to all men, humbled all alike (not -mortified one or two, and sent the rest home, scandal-talking with -pharisaic "I thank thee, God, I am not as so and so, but I was glad to -hear the parson"), comforted all, frightened all, offended all, because -they were all _men_--that private vices depend so much on particular -circumstances, that without making the pulpit a lampoon shop, (or, even -supposing the genius of him who wrote Isaac Jenkins, without particulars -not suited to the pulpit) that it would be a cold generality affair--and -that, therefore, they considered the pulpit as _one_ part of their duty, -but to their whole congregation as _men_, and that the other part of -their duty, which they thought equally binding on them, was to each and -every member of that congregation as John Harris, or James Tomkins, in -private conversation--and, like that of Mr. Longford, sometimes to -rebuke and warn, sometimes to comfort, sometimes and oftener to -instruct, and render them capable of understanding his sermon. In short -they would _preach_ as Luther, and would converse as Mr. Longford to -Isaac Jenkins. - -[_The History of Isaac Jenkins, a Moral Fiction._ By Thomas Beddoes, -M.D., 1793]. - - -[Sidenote: HEAVINESS MAY ENDURE FOR A NIGHT] - -With a loving generous man whose activity of intellect is exerted -habitually on truth and events of permanent, or, at least, general -interest still warmed and coloured by benevolent enthusiasm -self-unconsciously, and whose heart-movements are all the property of -the few, whom he dearly loves--with such a man, for the vast majority of -the wrongs met with in life, that at all affect him, a one-night's sleep -provides the oblivion and the cure--he awakes from his slumbers and his -resentment at the same moment. Yesterday is gone and the clouds of -yesterday. The sun is born again, and how bright and joyous! and I am -born again! But O! there may be wrongs, for which with our best efforts -for the most perfect suppression, with the absence, nay, the -impossibility of anger or hate, yet, longer, deeper sleep is required -for the heart's oblivion, and thence renewal--even the long total sleep -of death. - -To me, I dare avow, even this connects a new soothing with the thought -of death, an additional lustre in anticipation to the confidence of -resurrection, that such sensations as I have so often had after small -wrongs, trifling quarrels, on first awaking in a summer morn after -refreshing sleep, I shall experience after death for those few wounds -too deep and broad for the _vis medicatrix_ of mortal life to fill -wholly up with new flesh--those that, though healed, yet left an -unsightly scar which, too often, spite of our best wishes, opened anew -at other derangements and indispositions of the mental health, even when -they were altogether unconnected with the wound itself or its -occasions--even as the scars of the sailor, the relics and remembrances -of sword or gun-shot wounds (first of all his bodily frame giving way to -ungenial influences from without or from within), ache and throb at the -coming in of rain or easterly winds, and open again and bleed anew, at -the attack of fever, or injury from deficient or unwholesome food--that -even for these I should enjoy the same delightful annihilation of them, -as of ordinary wrongs after sleep. - - -I would say to a man who reminded me of a friend's unkind words or deeds -which I had forgiven--Smoking is very well while we are all smoking, -even though the head is made dizzy by it and the candle of reason burns -red, dim and thick; but, for Heaven's sake, don't put an old pipe to my -nose just at breakfast time, among dews and flowers and sunshine. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[Footnote F: ["I find all things upon earth, even truth and joy, rather -than friendship."]] - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -_1811-1812_ - - From all that meets or eye or ear, - There falls a genial holy fear, - Which, like the heavy dew of morn, - Refreshes while it bows the heart forlorn! - - S. T. C. - - -[Sidenote: TIME REAL AND IMAGINARY] - -How marked the contrast between troubled manhood, and joyously-active -youth in the sense of time! To the former, time like the sun in an empty -sky is never seen to move, but only to have _moved_. There, there it -was, and now 'tis here, now distant! yet all a blank between. To the -latter it is as the full moon in a fine breezy October night, driving on -amid clouds of all shapes and hues, and kindling shifting colours, like -an ostrich in its speed, and yet seems not to have moved at all. This I -feel to be a just image of time real and time as felt, in two different -states of being. The title of the poem therefore (for poem it ought to -be) should be time real and time felt (in the sense of time) in active -youth, or activity with hope and fullness of aim in any period, and in -despondent, objectless manhood--time objective and subjective. - -[The riddle is hard to read, but the underlying thought seems to be that -in youth the sense of time is like the apparent motion of the moon -through clouds, ever driving on, but ever seeming to stand still; -whereas the sense of time in manhood is like the sun, which seems to be -stationary, and yet, at short intervals, is seen to have moved. This is -time _felt_ in two different states of being. Time real is, as it were, -sun or moon which move independently of our perceptions of their -movements. The note (1811), no doubt, contains the germ of "Time Real -and Imaginary" first published in "Sibylline Leaves" in 1817, which -Coleridge in his Preface describes as a "school-boy poem," and -interprets thus: "By imaginary time I meant the state of a schoolboy's -mind when, on his return to school, he projects his being in his -day-dreams, and lives in his next holidays, six months hence!" The -explanation was probably an afterthought. "The two lovely children" who -"run an endless race" may have haunted his schoolboy dreams, may perhaps -have returned to the dreams of his troubled manhood, bringing with them -the sense rather than the memory of youth, intermingled with a -consciousness that youth was gone for ever, but the composition of the -poem dates from 1811, or possibly 1815, when the preparation of the -poems for the press would persuade him once more to express his thoughts -in verse.] - - -[Sidenote: TIME REAL AND IMAGINARY; AN ALLEGORY] - - On the wide level of a mountain's head, - (I knew not where, but 'twas some faery place) - Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails outspread, - Two lovely children run an endless race, - A sister and a brother! - This far outstript the other; - Yet ever runs she with reverted face, - And looks and listens for the boy behind: - For he, alas! is blind! - O'er rough and smooth with even step he passed, - And knows not whether he be first or last. - -[_P. W._, 1893, p. 187. See, too, Editor's _Note_, p. 638.] - - -[Sidenote: THE HAG NIGHTMARE] - -Elucidation of my _all-zermalming_, [that is, all-crushing] argument on -the subject of ghosts, apparitions, &c. - -Night-mare is, I think, always, even when it occurs in the midst of -sleep, and not as it more commonly does after a waking interval, a state -not of sleep, but of stupor of the outward organs of sense--not in -words, indeed, but yet in fact distinguishable from the suspended power -of the senses in true sleep, while the volitions of reason, that is the -faculty of comparison, &c., are awake though disturbed. This stupor -seems to be occasioned by some painful sensations of unknown locality -(most often, I believe, in the lower bowel) which, withdrawing the -attention to itself from the sense of other realities present, makes us -asleep to them, indeed, but otherwise awake. And, whenever the -derangement occasions an interruption in the circulation, aided, -perhaps, by pressure, awkward position, &c., the part deadened, as the -hand, the arm, or the foot and leg, or the side, transmits double touch -as single touch, to which the imagination, therefore, the true inward -creatrix, instantly out of the chaos of elements or shattered fragments -of memory, puts together some form to fit it. And this [_imaginatio_] -derives an over-mastering sense of reality from the circumstance that -the power of reason, being in good measure awake, most generally -presents to us all the accompanying images very nearly as they existed -the moment before, when we fell out of anxious wakefulness into this -reverie. For example, the bed, the curtain, the room and its furniture, -the knowledge of who lives in the next room, and so forth contribute to -the illusion.... In short, the night-mare is not, properly, a dream, but -a species of reverie, akin to somnambulism, during which the -understanding and moral sense are awake, though more or less confused, -and over the terrors of which the reason can exert no influence, -because it is not true _terror_, that is, apprehension of danger, but is -itself a specific sensation = _terror corporeus sive materialis_. The -explanation and classification of these strange sensations, the organic -material analogous (_ideas materiales intermedias_, as the Cartesians -say) of Fear, Hope, Rage, Shame, and (strangest of all) Remorse, form at -present the most difficult, and at the same time the most interesting -problem of psychology, and are intimately connected with prudential -morals, the science, that is, of morals not as the ground and law of -duty, but in their relation to the empirical hindrances and focillations -in the realising of the law by human beings. The solution of this -problem would, perhaps, throw great doubt on the present [notion] that -the forms and feelings of sleep are always the reflections and confused -echoes of our waking thoughts and experiences. - - -[Sidenote: A MOMENT AND A MAGIC MIRROR] - -What a swarm of thoughts and feelings, endlessly minute fragments, and, -as it were, representations of all preceding and embryos of all future -thought, lie compact in any one moment! So, in a single drop of water, -the microscope discovers what motions, what tumult, what wars, what -pursuits, what stratagems, what a circle-dance of death and life, -death-hunting life, and life renewed and invigorated by death! The whole -world seems here in a many-meaning cypher. What if our existence was -but that moment? What an unintelligible, affrightful riddle, what a -chaos of limbs and trunk, tailless, headless, nothing begun and nothing -ended, would it not be? And yet scarcely more than that other moment of -fifty or sixty years, were that our all? Each part throughout infinite -diminution adapted to some other, and yet the whole a means to -nothing--ends everywhere, and yet an end nowhere. - -[Compare the three last lines of "What is Life?" - - Is very life by consciousness unbounded? - And all the thoughts, pains, joys of mortal breath, - A war-embrace of wrestling life and death? - - _P. W._, 1893, p. 173.] - - -[Sidenote: THAT INWARD EYE, THE BLISS OF SOLITUDE] - -The love of Nature is ever returned double to us, not only the delighter -in our delight, but by linking our sweetest, but of themselves -perishable feelings to distinct and vivid images, which we ourselves, at -times, and which a thousand casual recollections, recall to our memory. -She is the preserver, the treasurer of our joys. Even in sickness and -nervous diseases, she has peopled our imagination with lovely forms -which have sometimes overpowered the inward pain and brought with them -their old sensations. And even when all men have seemed to desert us -and the friend of our heart has passed on, with one glance from his -"cold disliking eye"--yet even then the blue heaven spreads it out and -bends over us, and the little tree still shelters us under its plumage -as a second cope, a domestic firmament, and the low creeping gale will -sigh in the heath-plant and soothe us by sound of sympathy till the -lulled grief lose itself in fixed gaze on the purple heath-blossom, till -the present beauty becomes a vision of memory. - - -[Sidenote: HESPERUS] - -I have never seen the evening star set behind the mountains, but it was -as if I had lost a hope out of my soul, as if a love were gone, and a -sad memory only remained. O it was my earliest affection, the evening -star! One of my first utterances in verse was an address to it as I was -returning from the New River, and it looked newly bathed as well as I. I -remember that the substance of the sonnet was that the woman whom I -could ever love would surely have been emblemed in the pensive serene -brightness of that planet, that we were both constellated to it, and -would after death return thither. - -[Sidenote: TO THE EVENING STAR] - - TO THE EVENING STAR - - O meek attendant of Sol's setting blaze, - I hail, sweet star, thy chaste effulgent glow; - On thee full oft with fixed eye I gaze, - Till I methinks, all spirit seem to grow. - O first and fairest of the starry choir, - O loveliest 'mid the daughters of the night, - Must not the maid I love like thee inspire - _Pure_ joy and _calm_ delight? - Must she not be, as is thy placid sphere, - Serenely brilliant? Whilst to gaze awhile - Be all my wish 'mid Fancy's high career - E'en till she quit this scene of earthly toil; - Then Hope perchance might fondly sigh to join - Her image in thy kindred orb, O star benign! - -[First printed from MS. _Poetical and Dramatic Works_, 1877-80; -_Poetical Works_, 1893, p. 11.] - - -[Sidenote: HEALTH, INDEPENDENCE, FRIENDSHIP] - -Where health is--at least, though pain be no stranger, yet when the -breath can rise, and turn round like a comet at its perihelion in its -ellipse, and again descend, instead of being a Sisiphus's stone; and the -chest can expand as by its own volition and the head sits firm yet -mobile aloft, like the vane of a tower on a hill shining in the blue -air, and appropriating sunshine and moonlight whatever weight of clouds -brood below--O when health and hope, and if not competence yet a -debtless _unwealth, libera et læta paupertas_, is his, a man may have -and love many friends, but yet, if indeed they be friends, he lives with -each a several and individual life. - - -[Sidenote: SELF-ABSORPTION AND SELFISHNESS] - -One source of calumny (I say _source_, because _allophoby_ from -_hëautopithygmy_ is the only proper _cause_) may be found in this--every -man's life exhibits two sorts of selfishness, those which are and those -which are not objects of his own consciousness. _A_ is thinking, -perhaps, of some plan in which he may benefit another, and during this -absorption consults his own little bodily comforts blindly--occupies the -best place at the fire-side, or asks at once, "Where am I to sit?" -instead of first inquiring after the health of another. Now the error -lies here, that _B_, in complaining of _A_, first takes for granted -either that these are acts of conscious selfishness in _A_, or, if he -allows the truth, yet considers them just as bad (and so perhaps they -may be in a certain sense), but _forgets_ that his own life presents the -same, judges of his own life exclusively by his own consciousness, that -of another by conscious and unconscious in a lump. A monkey's -anthropomorph attitudes we take for anthropic. - - -[Sidenote: SELF-ADVERTISING PHILANTHROPY] - -Try not to become disgusted with active benevolence, or despondent -because there is a _philanthropy-trade_. It is a sort of benefit-club of -virtue, supported by the contributions of paupers in virtue, founded by -genuine enthusiasts who gain a reputation for the thing--then slip in -successors who know how to avail themselves of the influence and -connections derived thereby--quite gratuitous, however, and -bustling-active--but yet _bribe high_ to become the unpaid physicians of -the dispensary at St. Luke's Hospital, and bow and scrape and intrigue, -Carlyleise and Knappise for it. And such is the [case with regard to] -the slave trade. The first abolitionists were the good men who laboured -when the thing seemed desperate--it was virtue for its own sake. Then -the quakers, Granville Sharp, etc.--then the restless spirits who are -under the action of tyrannical oppression from images, and, gradually, -mixed vanity and love of power with it--the politicians + saints = -Wilberforce. Last come the Scotchmen--and Brougham is now canvassing -more successfully for the seat of Wilberforce, who retires with great -honour and regret, from infirmities of age and _enoughness_. It is just -as with the great original benefactors and founders of useful plans, -Raleigh, Sir Hugh Middleton, etc.--men of genius succeeded by sharpers, -but who often can better carry on what they never could have first -conceived--and this, too, by their very want of those qualities and -virtues which were necessary to the discovery. - - -[Sidenote: "BUT LOVE IS INDESTRUCTIBLE"] - -All mere passions, like spirits and apparitions, have their hour of -cock-crow, in which they must vanish. But pure love is, therefore, no -_mere_ passion; and it is a test of its being love, that no reason can -be assigned _why_ it should disappear. Shall we not always, in this life -at least, remain _animæ dimidiatæ_?--must not the moral reason always -hold out the perfecting of each by union of both as good and lovely? -With reason, therefore, and conscience let love vanish, but let these -vanish only with our being. - - -[Sidenote: THE FEINT OF THE SLEEPLESS] - -The sick and sleepless man, after the dawn of the fresh day, is fain to -watch the smoke now from this and then from the other chimney of the -town from his bed-chamber, as if willing to borrow from others that -sense of a new day, of a discontinuity between the yesterday and the -to-day which his own sensations had not afforded. [Compare Wordsworth's -"Blessed Barrier Between Day and Day," Wordsworth's Third Sonnet to -Sleep, _Poetical Works_, 1889, 354.] - - -[Sidenote: FIRST THOUGHTS AND FRIENDSHIP] - -O what wisdom could I _talk_ to a YOUTH of genius and -genial-heartedness! O how little could I teach! and yet, though -despairing of success, I would attempt to enforce:--"Whenever you meet -with a person of undoubted talents, more especially if a woman, and of -apparent goodness, and yet you feel uncomfortable, and urged against -your nature, and, therefore, probably in vain, to be on your guard--then -take yourself to task and enquire what strong reason, moral or -prudential, you have to form any intimacy or even familiarity with that -person. If you after this (or moreover) detect any falsehood, or, what -amounts to the same, proneness and quickness to look into, to analyse, -to find out and represent evil or weakness in others (however this may -be disguised even from the person's own mind by _candour_, [in] pointing -out the good at the same time, by affectation of speculative truth, as -psychologists, or of telling you all their thoughts as open-hearted -friends), then let no reason but a strong and coercive one suffice to -make you any other than as formal and distant acquaintance as -circumstances will permit." And am I not now suffering, in part, for -forcing my feelings into slavery to my notions, and intellectual -admiration for a whole year and more with regard to ---- ? [So the MS.] -If I played the hypocrite to myself, can I blame my fate that he has, at -length, played the deceiver to me? Yet, God knows! I did it most -virtuously!--not only without vanity or any self-interest of however -subtle a nature, but from humility and a true delight in finding -excellence of any kind, and a disposition to fall prostrate before it. - - -[Sidenote: MILTON'S BLANK VERSE] - -To understand fully the mechanism, in order fully to feel the -incomparable excellence of Milton's metre, we must make four tables, or -a fourfold compartment, the first for the feet, single and composite, -for which the whole twenty-six feet of the ancients will be found -necessary; the second to note the construction of the feet, whether from -different or from single words--for who does not perceive the difference -to the ear between-- - - "Inextricable disobedience" and - - "To love or not: in this we stand or fall"-- - -yet both lines are composed of five iambics? The third, of the strength -and position, the concentration or diffusion of the _emphasis_. Fourth, -the length and position of the pauses. Then compare his narrative with -the harangues. I have not noticed the ellipses, because they either do -not affect the rhythm, or are not ellipses, but are comprehended in the -feet. - - -[Sidenote: APHORISMS OR PITHY SENTENCES] - -Shall I compare man to a clockwork Catamaran, destined to float on in a -meaner element for so many moments or hours, and then to explode, -scattering its _involucrum_ and itself to ascend into its proper -element? - - -I am persuaded that we love what is above us more than what is under -us. - - -Money--paper money--peace, war. How comes it that all men in all -companies are talking of the depreciation, etc. etc.--and yet that a -discourse on transubstantiation would not be a more withering sirocco -than the attempt to explain philosophically the true cure and causes of -that which interests all so vehemently? - - -All convalescence is a resurrection, a palingenesy of our youth--"and -loves the earth and all that live thereon with a new heart." But oh! the -anguish to have the aching freshness of yearning and no answering -object--only remembrances of faithless change--and unmerited alienation! - - -The sun at evening holds up her fingers of both hands before her face -that mortals may have one steady gaze--her transparent crimson fingers -as when a lovely woman looks at the fire through her slender palms. - - -O that perilous moment [for such there is] of a half-reconciliation, -when the coldness and the resentment have been sustained too long. Each -is drawing toward the other, but like glass in the mid-state between -fusion and compaction a single sand will splinter it. - - -Sometimes when I earnestly look at a beautiful object or landscape, it -seems as if I were on the _brink_ of a fruition still denied--as if -Vision were an _appetite_; even as a man would feel who, having put -forth all his muscular strength in an act of prosilience, is at the very -moment _held back_--he leaps and yet moves not from his place. - - -Philosophy in general, but a plummet to so short a line that it can -sound no deeper than the sounder's eyes can reach--and yet--in certain -waters it may teach the exact depth and prevent a drowning. - - -The midnight wild beasts staring at the hunter's torch, or when the -hunter sees the tiger's eye glaring on the red light of his own torch. - - -A summer-sailing on a still peninsulating river, and sweet as the delays -of parting lovers. - - -Sir F[rancis] B[urdett], like a Lapland witch drowned in a storm of her -own raising. Mr. Cobbett, who, for a dollar, can raise what, offer him -ten thousand dollars, he could not allay. - - -[Sidenote: August, 1811] - -Why do you make a book? Because my hands can extend but a few score -inches from my body; because my poverty keeps those hands empty when my -heart aches to empty them; because my life is short, and [by reason of] -my infirmities; and because a book, if it extends but to one edition, -will probably benefit three or four score on whom I could not otherwise -have acted, and, should it live and deserve to live, will make ample -compensation for all the aforestated infirmities. O, but think only of -the thoughts, feelings, radical impulses that have been implanted in how -many thousands by the little ballad of the "Children in the Wood"! The -sphere of Alexander the Great's agency is trifling compared with it. - - -[Sidenote: PRESENTIMENTS] - -One of the strangest and most painful peculiarities of my nature (unless -others have the same, and, like me, hide it, from the same inexplicable -feeling of causeless shame and sense of a sort of guilt, joined with the -apprehension of being feared and shrunk from as a something -transnatural) I will here record--and my motive, or, rather, impulse, to -do this seems an effort to eloign and abalienate it from the dark adyt -of my own being by a visual outness, and not the wish for others to see -it. It consists in a sudden second sight of some hidden vice, past, -present or to come, of the person or persons with whom I am about to -form a close intimacy--which never deters me, but rather (as all these -transnaturals) urges me on, just like the feeling of an eddy-torrent to -a swimmer. I see it as a vision, feel it as a prophecy, not as one -_given_ me by any other being, but as an act of my own spirit, of the -absolute _noumenon_, which, in so doing, seems to have offended against -some law of its being, and to have acted the traitor by a commune with -full consciousness independent of the tenure or inflected state of -association, cause and effect, &c. - - -[Sidenote: THE FIXED STARS OF TRUTH] - -As the most far-sighted eye, even aided by the most powerful telescope, -will not make a fixed star appear larger than it does to an ordinary and -unaided sight, even so there are heights of knowledge and truth sublime -which all men in possession of the ordinary human understanding may -comprehend as much and as well as the profoundest philosopher and the -most learned theologian. Such are the truths relating to the _logos_ and -its oneness with the self-existent Deity, and of the humanity of Christ -and its union with the _logos_. It is idle, therefore, to refrain from -preaching on these subjects, provided only such preparations have been -made as no man can be a Christian without. The misfortune is that the -majority are Christians only in name, and by birth only. Let them but -once, according to St. James, have looked down steadfastly into the -_law_ of liberty or freedom in their own souls (the will and the -conscience), and they are capable of whatever God has chosen to reveal. - - -[Sidenote: C'EST MAGNIFIQUE, MAIS CE N'EST PAS LA POÉSIE] - -A long line of (!!) marks of admiration would be its aptest symbol! It -has given me the eye-ache with dazzlement, the brain-ache with -wonderment, the stomach and all-ache with the shock and after-eddy -of contradictory feelings. Splendour is there, splendour -everywhere--distinct the figures as vivid--skill in construction of -events--beauties numberless of form and thought. But there is not -anywhere the "one low piping note more sweet than all"--there is not the -divine vision of the poet, which gives the full fruition of sight -without the effort--and where the feelings of the heart are struck, they -are awakened only to complain of and recoil from the occasion. O! it is -mournful to see and wonder at such a marvel of labour, erudition and -talent concentered into such a burning-glass of factitious power, and -yet to know that it is all in vain--like the Pyramids, it shows what can -be done, and, like them, leaves in painful and almost scornful -perplexity, why it was done, for what or whom. - - -[Sidenote: SILENCE IS GOLDEN September 29th, 1812] - -Grand rule in case of quarrels between friends or lovers--never to say, -hint, or do _anything_ in a moment of anger or indignation or sense of -ill-treatment, but to be passive--and even if the fit should recur the -next morning, still to delay it--in short, however plausible the motive -may be, yet if you have loved the persons concerned, not to say it till -their love has returned toward you, and your feelings are the same as -they were before. And for this plain reason--you knew this before, and -yet because you were in kindness, you never felt an impulse to speak of -it--then, surely, not now when you may perpetuate what would otherwise -be fugitive. - - -[Sidenote: THE DEVIL: A RECANTATION] - -"That not one of the _peculiarities_ of Christianity, no one point in -which, being clearly different from other religions or philosophies, it -would have, at least, the _possibility_ of being superior to all, is -retained by the modern Unitarians." This remark is occasioned by my -reflections on the fact that Christianity _exclusively_ has asserted the -_positive_ being of evil or sin, "of sin the exceeding sinfulness"--and -thence exclusively the _freedom_ of the creature, as that, the clear -intuition of which is, both, the result and the accompaniment of -redemption. The nearest philosophy to Christianity is the Platonic, and -it is observable that this is the mere antipodes of the -Hartleio-Lockian held by the Unitarians; but the true honours of -Christianity would be most easily manifested by a comparison even with -that "_nec pari nec secundo_," but yet "_omnibus aliis propriore_," the -Platonic! With what contempt, even in later years, have I not -contemplated the doctrine of a devil! but now I see the intimate -connection, if not as existent _person_, yet as essence and symbol with -Christianity--and that so far from being identical with Manicheism, it -is the surest antidote (that is, rightly understood). - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -_1814-1818_ - - - Lynx amid moles! had I stood by thy bed, - Be of good cheer, meek soul! I would have said: - I see a hope spring from that humble fear. - - S. T. C. - - -[Sidenote: SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY] - -The first man of science was he who looked into a thing, not to learn -whether it could furnish him with food, or shelter, or weapons, or -tools, or ornaments, or _playwiths_, but who sought to know it for the -gratification of _knowing_; while he that first sought to _know_ in -order to _be_ was the first philosopher. I have read of two rivers -passing through the same lake, yet all the way preserving their streams -visibly distinct--if I mistake not, the Rhone and the Adar, through the -Lake of Geneva. In a far finer distinction, yet in a subtler union, -such, for the contemplative mind, are the streams of knowing and being. -The lake is formed by the two streams in man and nature as it exists in -and for man; and up this lake the philosopher sails on the junction-line -of the constituent streams, still pushing upward and sounding as he -goes, towards the common fountain-head of both, the mysterious source -whose being is knowledge, whose knowledge is being--the adorable I AM IN -THAT I AM. - - -[Sidenote: PETRARCH'S EPISTLES] - -I have culled the following extracts from the First Epistle of the First -Book of Petrarch's Epistle, that "Barbato Salmonensi." [Basil, 1554, i. -76.] - - Vultûs, heu, blanda severi - Majestas, placidæque decus pondusque senectæ! - - Non omnia terræ - Obruta! vivit amor, vivit dolor! Ora negatum - Dulcia conspicere; at flere et meminisse relictum est. - - Jamque observatio vitæ - Multa dedit--lugere nihil, ferre omnia; jamque - Paulatim lacrymas rerum experientia tersit. - [Heu! et spem quoque tersit] - - Pectore nunc gelido calidos miseremur amantes, - Jamque arsisse pudet. Veteres tranquilla tumultus - Mens horret, relegensque alium putat esse locutum. - -But, indeed, the whole of this letter deserves to be read and -translated. Had Petrarch lived a century later, and, retaining all his -_substantiality_ of head and heart, added to it the elegancies and manly -politure of Fracastorius, Flaminius, Vida and their corrivals, this -letter would have been a classical gem. To a translator of genius, and -who possessed the English language as unembarrassed property, the -defects of style in the original would present no obstacle; nay, rather -an honourable motive in the well-grounded hope of rendering the version -a finer poem than the original. - -[Twelve lines of Petrarch's Ep. _Barbato Salmonensi_ are quoted in the -_Biog. Liter._ at the end of chapter x.; and a portion of the same poem -was prefixed as a motto to "Love Poems" in the _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817, -and the editions of _P. W._, 1828-9. _Coleridge's Works_, Harper & -Brother, 1853, iii. 314. See, too, _P. W._, 1893, _Editor's Note_, pp. -614, 634.] - - -[Sidenote: CORRUPTIO OPTIMI PESSIMA] - -A fine writer of bad principles or a fine poem on a hateful subject, -such as the "Alexis" of Virgil or the "Bathyllus" of Anacreon, I compare -to the flowers and leaves of the Stramonium. The flowers are remarkable -sweet, but such is the fetid odour of the leaves that you start back -from the one through disgust at the other. - - -[Sidenote: A BLISS TO BE ALIVE] - - Zephyrs that captive roam among these boughs, - Strive ye in vain to thread the leafy maze? - Or have ye lim'd your wings with honey-dew? - Unfelt ye murmur restless o'er my head - And rock the feeding drone or bustling bees - That blend their eager, earnest, happy hum! - - -[Sidenote: WHAT MAN HAS MADE OF MAN] - - Gravior terras infestat Echidna, - Cur sua vipereæ jaculantur toxica linguæ - Atque homini sit homo serpens. O prodiga culpæ - Germina, naturæque uteri fatalia monstra! - Queis nimis innocuo volupe est in sanguine rictus - Tingere, fraternasque fibras cognataque per se - Viscera, et arrosæ deglubere funera famæ. - Quæ morum ista lues! - -25th Feb. 1819 Five years since the preceding lines were written on this -leaf!! Ah! how yet more intrusively has the hornet scandal since then -scared away the bee of poetic thought and silenced its "eager, earnest, -happy hum"! - - -[Sidenote: SAVE ME FROM MY FRIENDS] - -The sore evil now so general, alas! only not universal, of supporting -our religion, just as a keen party-man would support his party in -Parliament. All must be defended which can give a momentary advantage -over any one opponent, no matter how naked it lays the cause open to -another, perhaps, more formidable opponent--no matter how incompatible -the two assumptions may be. We rejoice, not because our religion is the -truth, but because the truth appears to be our religion. Talk with any -dignified orthodoxist in the sober way of farther preferment and he will -concrete all the grounds of Socinianism, talk Paley and the Resurrection -as a proof and as the only proper _proof_ of our immortality, will give -to external evidence and miracles the same self-grounded force, the same -fundamentality. Even so the old Puritans felt towards the Papists. -Because so much was wrong, everything was wrong, and by denying all -reverence to the fathers and to the constant tradition of the Catholic -Churches, they undermined the wall of the city in order that it might -fall on the heads of the Romanists--thoughtless that by this very act -they made a Breach for the Arian and Socinian to enter. - - -[Sidenote: DRIP DRIP DRIP DRIP] - -The ear-deceiving imitation of a steady soaking rain, while the sky is -in full uncurtainment of sprinkled stars and milky stream and dark blue -interspace. The rain had held up for two hours or more, but so deep was -the silence of the night that the _drip_ from the leaves of the garden -trees _copied_ a steady shower. - - -[Sidenote: REMEDIUM AMORIS] - -So intense are my affections, and so despotically am I governed by them -(not indeed so much as I once was, but still far, far too much) that I -should be the most wretched of men if my love outlived my esteem. But -this, thank Heaven! is the antidote. The bitterer the tear of anguish at -the clear detection of misapplied attachment, the calmer I am -afterwards. It is a funeral tear for an object no more. - - -[Sidenote: THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER] - -February 23, 1816. - -I thought I expressed my thoughts well when I said, "There is no -superstition but what has a religion as its base [or radical], and -religion is only reason, seen perspectively by a finite intellect." - - -[Sidenote: THE POWER OF WORDS] - -It is a common remark, in medical books for instance, that there are -certain niceties which words, from their always abstract and so far -general nature, cannot convey. Now this I am disposed to deny, that is, -in any comparative sense. In my opinion there is nothing which, being -equally known as any other thing, may not be conveyed by words with -equal clearness. But the question of the source of the remark is, to -whom? If I say that in jaundice the skin looks yellow, my words have no -meaning for a man who has no sense of colours. Words are but -remembrances, though remembrance may be so excited, as by the _a priori_ -powers of the mind to produce a _tertium aliquid_. The utmost, therefore -that should be said is that every additament of perception requires a -new word, which (like all other words) will be intelligible to all who -have seen the subject recalled by it, and who have learnt that such a -word or phrase was appropriated to it; and this may be attained either -by a new word, as _platinum_, _titanium_, _osmium_, etc., for the new -metals, or an epithet peculiarising the application of an old word. For -instance, no one can have attended to the brightness of the eyes in a -healthy person in high spirits and particularly delighted by some -occurrence, and that of the eye of a person deranged or predisposed to -derangement, without observing the difference; and, in this case, the -phrase "a maniacal glitter of the eye" conveys as clear a notion as that -jaundice is marked by yellow. There is, doubtless, a difference, but no -other than that of the _commencement_ of particular knowledge by the -application of universal knowledge (that is to all who have the senses -and common faculties of men), and the next step of knowledge when it -particularises itself. But the defect is not in words, but in the -imperfect knowledge of those to whom they are addressed. Then proof is -obvious. Desire a physician or metaphysician, or a lawyer to mention -the most perspicuous book in their several knowledges. Then bid them -read that book to a sensible carpenter or shoemaker, and a great part -will be as unintelligible as a technical treatise on carpentering to the -lawyer or physician, who had not been brought up in a carpenter's shop -or looked at his tools. - -I have dwelt on this for more reasons than one: first, because a remark -that seems at first sight the same, namely, that "everything clearly -perceived may be conveyed in simple common language," without taking in -the "to whom?" is the disease of the age--an arrogant pusillanimity, a -hatred of all information that cannot be obtained without thinking; and, -secondly, because the pretended imperfection of language is often a -disguise of muddy thoughts; and, thirdly, because to the mind itself it -is made an excuse for indolence in determining what the fact or truth is -which is the premise. For whether there does or does not exist a term in -our present store of words significant thereof--if not, a word must be -made--and, indeed, all wise men have so acted from Moses to Aristotle -and from Theophrastus to Linnæus. - -The sum, therefore, is this. The conveyal of knowledge by words is in -direct proportion to the stores and faculties of observation (internal -or external) of the person who hears or reads them. And this holds -equally whether I distinguish the green grass from the white lily and -the yellow crocus, which all who have eyes understand, because all are -equal to me in the knowledge of the facts signified--or of the -difference between the apprehensive, perceptive, conceptive, and -conclusive powers which I might [try to enunciate to] Doctors of -Divinity and they would translate the words by _Abra Ca Dabra_. - - -[Sidenote: FLOWERS OF SPEECH Sunday, April 30, 1816] - -Reflections on my four gaudy flower-pots, compared with the former -flower-poems. After a certain period, crowded with counterfeiters of -poetry, and illustrious with true poets, there is formed for common use -a vast _garden_ of language, all the showy and all the odorous words and -clusters of words are brought together, and to be plucked by mere -mechanic and passive memory. In such a state, any man of common poetical -reading, having a strong desire (to be?--O no! but--) to be thought a -poet will present a flower-pot gay and gaudy, but the _composition_! -That is wanting. We carry on judgment of times and circumstances into -our pleasures. A flower-pot which would have enchanted us before flower -gardens were common, for the very beauty of the component flowers, will -be rightly condemned as common-place, out of place (for such is a -common-place poet)--it involves a contradiction both in terms and -thought. So Homer's Juno, Minerva, etc., are read with delight--but -Blackmore? This is the reason why the judgment of those who are newlings -in poetic reading is not to be relied on. The positive, which belongs to -all, is taken as the comparative, which is the individual's praise. A -good ear which had never heard music--with what raptures would it praise -one of Shield's or Arne's Pasticcios and Centos! But it is the human -mind it praises, not the individual. Hence it may happen (I believe has -happened) that fashionableness may produce popularity. "The Beggar's -Petition" is a fair instance, and what if I dared to add Gray's "Elegy -in a Country Churchyard"? - - -[Sidenote: SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS] - -Men who direct what they call their understanding or common-sense by -rules abstracted from sensuous experience in moral and super-sensuous -truths remind one of the zemmi (mus [Greek: typhlos] or _typhlus_), "a -kind of rat in which the skin (conjunctiva) is not even transparent over -the eye, but is there covered with hairs as in the rest of the body. The -eye (= the understanding), which is scarcely the size of the poppy-seed, -is perfectly useless." An eel (_muroena coecilia_) and the myxine -(_gastobranchus coecus_) are blind in the same manner, through the -opacity of the conjunctiva. - - -[Sidenote: INSECTS] - -Sir G. Staunton asserts that, in the forests of Java, spiders' webs are -found of so strong a texture as to require a sharp-cutting instrument to -make way through them. Pity that he did not procure a specimen and bring -it home with him. It would be a pleasure to see a sailing-boat rigged -with them--twisting the larger threads into ropes and weaving the -smaller into a sort of silk canvas resembling the indestructible white -cloth of the arindy or _palma Christi_ silkworm. - - -The _Libellulidæ_ fly all ways without needing to turn their -bodies--onward, backward, right and left--with more than -swallow-rivalling rapidity of wing, readiness of evolution, and -indefatigable continuance. - - -The merry little gnats (_Tipulidæ minimæ_) I have myself often watched -in an April shower, evidently "dancing the hayes" in and out between the -falling drops, unwetted, or, rather, un-down-dashed by rocks of water -many times larger than their whole bodies. - - -[Sidenote: OF STYLE Sunday, January 25, 1817] - -A valuable remark has just struck me on reading Milton's beautiful -passage on true eloquence, his apology for Smectymnuus. "For me, reader, -though I cannot say," etc.--first, to shew the vastly greater numbers -of admirable passages, in our elder writers, that may be gotten by -heart as the most exquisite poems; and to point out the great -intellectual advantage of this reading, over the gliding smoothly on -through a whole volume of equability. But still, it will be said, there -is an antiquity, an oddness in the style. Granted; but hear this same -passage from the Smectymnuus, or this, or this. Every one would know at -first hearing that they were not written by Gibbon, Hume, Johnson, or -Robertson. But why? Are they not pure English? Aye! incomparably more -so! Are not the words precisely appropriate, so that you cannot change -them without changing the force and meaning? Aye! But are they not even -now intelligible to man, woman, and child? Aye! there is no -riddle-my-ree in them. What, then, is it? The unnatural, false, affected -style of the moderns that makes sense and simplicity _oddness_. - - -[Sidenote: OBDUCTÂ FRONTE SENECTUS] - -Even to a sense of shrinking, I felt in this man's face and figure what -a shape comes to view when age has dried away the mask from a bad, -depraved man, and flesh and colour no longer conceal or palliate the -traits of the countenance. Then shows itself the indurated nerve; stiff -and rigid in all its ugliness the inflexible muscle; then quiver the -naked lips, the cold, the loveless; then blinks the turbid eye, whose -glance no longer pliant _fixes_, abides in its evil expression. Then lie -on the powerless forehead the wrinkles of suspicion and fear, and -conscience-stung watchfulness. Contrast this with the countenance of -Mrs. Gillman's mother as she once described it to me. This for "Puff and -Slander,"[G] Highgate, 1817. - - -[Sidenote: A "KINGDOM-OF-HEAVENITE"] - -When the little creature has slept out its sleep and stilled its hunger -at the mother's bosom (that very hunger a mode of love all made up of -kisses), and coos, and wantons with pleasure, and laughs, and plays -bob-cherry with his mother, that is all, all to it. It understands not -either itself or its mother, but it clings to her, and has an undeniable -right to cling to her, seeks her, thanks her, loves her without -forethought and without an afterthought. - - -[Sidenote: A DIVINE EPIGRAM] - -_Nec mihi, Christe, tua sufficiunt sine te, nec tibi placent mea sine -me_, exclaims St. Bernard. _Nota Bene._--This single epigram is worth -(shall I say--O far rather--is a sufficient antidote to) a waggon-load -of Paleyan moral and political philosophies. - - -[Sidenote: SERIORES ROSÆ] - -We all look up to the blue sky for comfort, but nothing appears there, -nothing comforts, nothing answers us, and so we die. - - -Lie with the ear upon a dear friend's grave. - - -On the same man, as in a vineyard, grow far different grapes--on the -sunny south nectar, and on the bleak north verjuice. - - -The blossom gives not only future fruit, but present honey. We may take -the one, the other nothing injured. - - -Like some spendthrift Lord, after we have disposed of nature's great -masterpiece and [priceless] heirloom, the wisdom of innocence, we hang -up as a poor copy our [own base] cunning. - - -[Sidenote: A PLEA FOR SCHOLASTIC TERMS] - -The revival of classical literature, like all other revolutions, was not -an unmixed good. One evil was the passion for pure Latinity, and a -consequent contempt for the barbarism of the scholastic style and -terminology. For awhile the schoolmen made head against their -assailants; but, alas! all the genius and eloquence of the world was -against them, and by an additional misfortune the scholastic logic was -professed by those who had no other attainments, namely, the monks, and -these, from monkishness, were the enemies of all genius and liberal -knowledge. They were, of course, laughed out of the field as soon as -they lost the power of aiding their logic by the post-predicaments of -dungeon, fire, and faggot. Henceforward speculative philosophy must be -written classically, that is, without technical terms--therefore -popularly--and the inevitable consequence was that those sciences only -were progressive which were permitted by the apparent as well as real -necessity of the case to have a scientific terminology--as mathesis, -geometry, astronomy and so forth--while metaphysic sank and died, and an -empirical highly superficial psychology took its place. And so it has -remained in England to the present day. A man must have felt the pain of -being compelled to express himself either laxly or paraphrastically -(which latter is almost as great an impediment in intellectual -construction as the translation of letters and symbols into the thought -they represent would be in Algebra), in order to understand how much a -metaphysician suffers from not daring to adopt the _ivitates_ and -_eitates_ of the schoolmen as objectivity, subjectivity, negativity, -positivity. April 29, 1817, Tuesday night. - - -[Sidenote: THE BODY OF THIS DEATH] - -The sentimental _cantilena_ respecting the benignity and loveliness of -nature--how does it not sink before the contemplation of the pravity of -nature, on whose reluctance and inaptness a form is forced (the mere -reflex of that form which is itself absolute substance!) and which it -struggles against, bears but for a while and then sinks with the -alacrity of self-seeking into dust or _sanies_, which falls abroad into -endless nothings or creeps and cowers in poison or explodes in havock! -What is the beginning? what the end? And how evident an alien is the -supernatural in the brief interval! - - -[Sidenote: SPIRITUALISM AND MYSTICISM] - -There are many, alas! too many, either born or who have become deaf and -dumb. So there are too many who have perverted the religion of the -spirit into the superstition of spirits that mutter and mock and mow, -like deaf and dumb idiots. Plans of teaching the deaf and dumb have been -invented. For these the deaf and dumb owe thanks, and we for their -sakes. _Homines sumus et nihil humani a nobis alienum._ But does it -follow, therefore, that in _all_ schools these plans of teaching should -be followed? Yet in the other case this is insisted on--and the Holy -Ghost must not be our guide because mysticism and ghosts may come in -under this name. Why? Because the deaf and dumb have been promoted to -superintendents of education at large for all! - - -[Sidenote: IDEALISM AND SUPERSTITION] - -Save only in that in which I have a right to demand of every man that he -should be able to understand me, the experience or inward witnessing of -the conscience, and in respect of which every man in real life (even the -very disputant who affects doubt or denial in the moment of metaphysical -arguing) would hold himself insulted by the supposition that he did not -understand it--save in this only, and in that which if it be at all must -be _unique_, and therefore cannot be supported by an analogue, and -which, if it be at all, must be first, and therefore cannot have an -antecedent, and therefore may be _monstrated_, but cannot be -_de_monstrated.--I am no ghost-seer, I am no believer in apparitions. I -do not contend for indescribable sensations, nor refer to, much less -ground my convictions on, blind feelings or incommunicable experiences, -but far rather contend against these superstitions in the mechanic sect, -and impeach you as guilty, habitually and systematically guilty, of the -same. Guilty, I say, of superstitions, which at worst are but exceptions -and _fits_ in the poor self-misapprehending pietists, with whom, under -the name mystics, you would fain confound and discredit _all_ who -receive and worship God in spirit and in truth, and in the former as -the only possible mode of the latter. According to your own account, -your own scheme, you know nothing but your own sensations, indescribable -inasmuch as they are sensations--for the appropriate expression even of -which we must fly not merely to the indeclinables in the lowest parts of -speech, but to human articulations that only (like musical notes) _stand -for_ inarticulate sounds--the [Greek: oi, oi, papai] of the Greek -tragedies, or, rather, Greek oratorios. You see nothing, but only by a -sensation that conjures up an image in your own brain, or optic nerve -(as in a nightmare), have an apparition, in consequence of which, as -again in the nightmare, you are _forced_ to believe for the moment, and -are _inclined_ to infer the existence of a corresponding reality out of -your brain, but by what intermediation you cannot even form an -intelligible conjecture. During the years of ill-health from disturbed -digestion, I saw a host of apparitions, and heard them too--but I -attributed them to an act in my brain. You, according to your own -showing, see and hear nothing but apparitions in your brain, and -strangely attribute them to things that _are_ outside your skull. Which -of the two notions is most like the philosopher, which the -superstitionist? The philosopher who makes my apparitions nothing but -apparitions--a brain-image nothing more than a brain-image--and affirm -_nihil super stare_--or you and yours who vehemently contend that it is -but a brain-image, and yet cry, "_ast superstitit aliquid. Est super -stitio alicujus quod in externo, id est, in apparenti non apparet_." - -What is outness, external and the like, but either the generalisation of -apparence or the result of a given degree, a comparative intensity of -the same? "I see it in my mind's eye," exclaims Hamlet, when his -thoughts were in his own purview the same phantom, yea! in a higher -intensity, became his father's ghost and marched along the platform. I -quoted your own exposition, and dare you with these opinions charge -others with superstition? You who deny aught permanent in our being, you -with whom the soul, yea, the soul of the soul, our conscience and -morality, are but the _tune_ from a fragile barrel-organ played by air -and water, and whose life, therefore, must of course be a _pointing_ -to--as of a Marcellus or a Hamlet--"Tis here! 'Tis gone!" Were it -possible that I could actually believe such a system, I should not be -scared from striking it, from its being so _majestical_! - - -[Sidenote: THE GREATER DAMNATION] - -The old law of England punishes those who dig up the bones of the dead -for superstitious or magical purposes, that is, in order to injure the -living. What then are they guilty of who uncover the dormitories of the -departed, and throw their souls into hell, in order to cast odium on a -living truth? - - -[Sidenote: DARWIN'S BOTANICAL GARDEN] - -Darwin possesses the _epidermis_ of poetry but not the _cutis_; the -_cortex_ without the _liber_, _alburnum_, _lignum_, or _medulla_. And no -wonder! for the inner bark or _liber_, alburnum, and wood are one and -the same substance, in different periods of existence. - - -[Sidenote: SEVENTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY YARDS NOT EXACTLY A MILE] - -"It is a mile and a half in height." "How much is that in yards or -feet?" The mind rests satisfied in producing a correspondency in its own -thoughts, and in the exponents of those thoughts. This seems to be a -matter purely analytic, not yet properly synthetic. It is rather an -interchange of equivalent acts, but not the same acts. In the yard I am -prospective; in the mile I seem to be retrospective. Come, a hundred -strides more, and we shall have come a mile. This, if true, may be a -subtlety, but is it necessarily a trifle? May not many common but false -conclusions originate in the neglect of this distinction--in the -confounding of objective and subjective logic? - - -[Sidenote: OF A TOO WITTY BOOK] - -I like salt to my meat so well that I can scarce say grace over meat -without salt. But salt to one's salt! Ay! a sparkling, dazzling, lit-up -saloon or subterranean minster in a vast mine of rock-salt--what of -it?--full of white pillars and aisles and altars of eye-dazzling salt. -Well, what of it?--'twere an uncomfortable lodging or boarding-house--in -short, _all my eye_. Now, I am content with a work if it be but my eye -and Betty Martin, because, having never heard any charge against the -author of the adage, candour obliges me to conclude that Eliza Martin is -"sense for certain." In short, never was a metaphor more lucky, apt, -ramescent, and fructiferous--a hundred branches, and each hung with a -different graft-fruit--than salt as typical of wit--the uses of both -being the same, not to nourish, but to season and preserve nourishment. -Yea! even when there is plenty of good substantial meat to incorporate -with, stout aitch-bone and buttock, still there may be too much; and -they who confine themselves to such meals will contract a scorbutic -habit of intellect (_i.e._, a scurvy taste), and, with loose teeth and -tender gums, become incapable of chewing and digesting hard matters of -mere plain thinking. - - -[Sidenote: SPOOKS] - -It is thus that the Glanvillians reason. First, they assume the facts as -objectively as if the question related to the experimentable of our -senses. Secondly, they take the imaginative possibility--that is, that -the [assumed] facts involve no contradiction, [as if it were] a -scientific possibility. And, lastly, they [advocate] them as proofs of -a spiritual world and our own immortality. This last [I hold to] be the -greatest insult to conscience and the greatest incongruity with the -objects of religion. - -N.B.--It is amusing, in all ghost stories, etc., that the recorders are -"the farthest in the world from being credulous," or "as far from -believing such things as any man." - - -If a man could pass through Paradise in a dream, and have a flower -presented to him as a pledge that his soul had really been there, and if -he found that flower in his hand when he awoke--Aye! and what then? - - -The more exquisite and delicate a flower of joy, the tenderer must be -the hand that plucks it. - - -Floods and general inundations render for the time even the purest -springs turbid. - - -For compassion a human heart suffices; but for full, adequate sympathy -with joy, an angel's. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[Footnote G: A projected satire, of which, perhaps, the lines headed "A -Character" were an instalment. See _P. W._, 1893, pp. 195-642. _Letters -of S. T. C._, 1895, ii. 631.] - - - - -CHAPTER X - -_1819-1828_ - - Where'er I find the Good, the True, the Fair, - I ask no names--God's spirit dwelleth there! - The unconfounded, undivided Three, - Each for itself, and all in each, to see - In man and Nature, is Philosophy. - - S. T. C. - - -[Sidenote: THE MOON'S HALO AN EMBLEM OF HOPE] - -The moon, rushing onward through the coursing clouds, advances like an -indignant warrior through a fleeing army; but the amber halo in which -she moves--O! it is a circle of Hope. For what she leaves behind her has -not lost its radiance as it is melting away into oblivion, while, still, -the other semi-circle catches the rich light at her approach, and -heralds her ongress. - - -[Sidenote: A COMPLEX VEXATION] - -It is by strength of mind that we are to untwist the tie or copula of -the besom of affliction, which not nature but the strength of -imagination had twisted round it, and thus resolve it into its component -twigs, and conquer in detail "one down and t'other come on"! _Dividendo -diminuitur_--which forms the true ground of the advantage accruing from -communicating our griefs to another. We enable ourselves to see them -each in its true magnitude. - - -[Sidenote: THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF ENGLAND] - -After re-perusal of my inefficient, yet not feeble efforts in behalf of -the poor little white slaves in the cotton-factories, I ask myself, "But -still are we not better than the other nations of Christendom?" -Yes--Perhaps. I don't know. I dare not affirm it. Better than the French -certainly! Mammon _versus_ Moloch and Belial. But Sweden, Norway, -Germany, the Tyrol? No. - - -[Sidenote: THE MEED OF PRAISE] - -There is a species of applause scarcely less genial to a poet, whether -bard, musician, or artist, than the vernal warmth to the feathered -songsters during their nest-building or incubation--a sympathy, an -expressed hope, that is the open air in which the poet breathes, and -without which the sense of power sinks back on itself like a sigh heaved -up from the tightened chest of a sick man. Alas! alas! alas! - - -[Sidenote: THE GREAT UNKNOWN] - -Anonymity is now an artifice to acquire celebrity, as a black veil is -worn to make a pair of bright eyes more conspicuous. - - -[Sidenote: BOOK-LEARNING FOR LEGISLATORS] - -For the same reasons that we cannot now act by impulses, but must think, -so now must every legislator be a man of sound book-learning, because he -cannot, if he would, think or act from the simple dictates of unimproved -but undepraved common sense. Newspapers, reviews, and the conversation -of men who derive their opinions from newspapers and reviews will secure -for him artificial opinions, if he does not secure them for himself from -purer and more authentic sources. There is now no such being as a -country gentleman. Like their relation, the Dodo, the race is extinct, -or if by accident one has escaped, it belongs to the Museum, not to -active life, or the purposes of active life. - - -[Sidenote: THEISM AND ATHEISM] - -The more I read and reflect on the arguments of the truly philosophical -theists and atheists, the more I feel convinced that the ultimate -difference is a moral rather than an intellectual one, that the result -is an x y z, an acknowledged insufficiency of the known to account for -itself, and, therefore, a something unknown--that to which, while the -atheist leaves it a blank in the understanding, the theist dedicates his -noblest feelings of love and awe, and with which, by a moral syllogism, -he connects and unites his conscience and actions. For the words -goodness and wisdom are clearly only reflexes of the effect, just as -when we call the unknown cause of cold and heat by the name of its -effects, and _know_ nothing further. For if we mean that a Being like -man, with human goodness and intellect, only magnified, is the cause, -that is, that the First Cause is an immense man (as according to -Swedenborg and Zinzendorf), then come the insoluble difficulties of the -incongruity of qualities whose very essence implies finiteness, with a -Being _ex hypothesi_ infinite. - - -[Sidenote: THE MIND'S EYE] - -An excellent instance of the abstraction [from objects of the sense] -that results from the attention converging to any one object, is -furnished by the oily rags, broken saucers, greasy phials, dabs, crusts, -and smears of paints in the laboratory of a Raphael, or a Claude -Lorraine, or a Van Huysum, or any other great master of the beautiful -and becoming. In like manner, the mud and clay in the modelling hand of -a Chantrey--what are they to him whose total soul is awake, in his eye -as a subject, and before his eye as some ideal of beauty _objectively_? -The various objects of the senses are as little the objects of _his_ -senses, as the ink with which the "Lear" was written, existed in the -consciousness of a Shakspere. - - -[Sidenote: A LAND OF BLISS] - -The humming-moth with its glimmer-mist of rapid unceasing motion before -the humble-bee within the flowering bells and cups--and the eagle -_level_ with the clouds, himself a cloudy speck, surveys the vale from -mount to mount. From the cataract flung on the vale, the broadest -fleeces of the snowy foam light on the bank flowers or the water-lilies -in the stiller pool below. - - -[Sidenote: TIME AND ETERNITY] - -The defect of Archbishop Leighton's reasoning is the taking eternity for -a sort of time, a _baro major_, a baron of beef or quarter of lamb, out -of which and off which time is cut, as a brisket or shoulder--while, -even in common discourse, without any design of sounding the depth of -the truth or of weighing the words expressing it in the hair-balance of -metaphysics, it would be more convenient to consider eternity the _simul -et totum_ as the _antitheton_ of time. - - -[Sidenote: THE LITERARY STERILITY OF ISLAMISM] - -The extraordinary florency of letters under the Spanish Caliphate in -connection with the character and capabilities of Mohammedanism has -never yet been treated as its importance requires. Halim II, founder of -the University of Cordova, and of numerous colleges and libraries -throughout Spain, is said to have possessed a library of six hundred -thousand MSS., the catalogue filling forty-four volumes. Nor were his -successors behind him in zeal and munificence. That the prime article of -Islamism, the uni-personality of God, is one cause of the downfall, say -rather of the merely meteoric existence of their literary age, I am -persuaded, but the exclusive scene (in Spain) suggests many interesting -views. With a learned class Mohammedanism could not but pass into Deism, -and Deism never did, never can, establish itself as a religion. It is -the doctrine of the tri-unity that connects Christianity with -philosophy, gives a positive religion a specific interest to the -philosopher, and that of redemption to the moralist and psychologist. -Predestination, in the plenitude, in which it is equivalent to fatalism, -was the necessary alternative and _succedaneum_ of Redemption, and the -Incarnation the only preservative against pantheism on one side, and -anthropomorphism on the other. The Persian (Europeans in Asia) form of -Mohammedanism is very striking in this point of view. - - -[Sidenote: THE SPIRIT OF A PEOPLE] - -It is not by individual character that an individual can derive just -conclusions respecting a community or an age. Conclusions so drawn are -the excuse of selfish, narrow and pusillanimous statesmen, who, by -dwelling on the kindred baseness or folly of the persons with whom they -come in immediate contact, lose all faith in human nature, ignorant that -even in these a spark is latent which would light up and consume the -worthless overlay in a national moment. The spirit of a race is the -character of a people, the sleep or the awakening of which depends on a -few minds, pre-ordained for this purpose, and sometimes by the mere -removal of the dead weight of a degenerate Court or nobility pressing on -the spring. So I doubt not would it be with the Turks, were the Porte -and its seraglio conquered by Russia. But the spirit of a race ought -never to be supposed extinct, but on the other hand no more or other -ought to be expected than the race contains in itself. The true cause of -the irrecoverable fall of Rome is to be found in the fact, that Rome was -a city, a handful of men that multiplied its subjects incomparably -faster than its citizens, so that the latter were soon dilute and lost -in the former. On a similar principle colonists in modern times -degenerate by _excision_ from their race (the ancient colonies were -_buds_). This, I think, applies to the Neapolitans and most of the -Italian States. A nest of republics keep each other alive; but a -patchwork of principalities has the effect of excision by insulation, or -rather by compressure. How long did the life of Germany doze under these -ligatures! Yet did we not _despair wrongfully_ of the people? The spirit -of the race survived, of which literature was a part. Hence I dare not -despair of Greece, because it has been barbarised and enslaved, but not -split up into puny independent governments under Princes of their own -race. The Neapolitans have always been a conquered people, and -degenerates in the original sense of the word, _de genere_--they have -lost their race, though what it was is uncertain. Lastly, the individual -in all things is the prerogative of the divine knowledge. What it is, -our eyes can see only by what it has in common, and this can only be -seen in communities where neither excision, nor ligature, nor commixture -exists. Despotism and superstition will not extinguish the character of -a race, as Russia testifies. But again, take care to understand that -character, and expect no other fruit than the root contains in its -nature. - - -[Sidenote: THE FLIGHT OF MOHAMMED] - -Had I proceeded, in concert with R. Southey, with the "Flight and Return -of Mohammed," [1799] I had intended to introduce a disputation between -Mahomet, as the representative of unipersonal Theism with the -Judaico-Christian machinery of angels, genii, and prophets, an idolater -with his gods, heroes, and spirits of the departed mighty, and a -fetish-worshipper who adored the invisible alone, and held no religion -common to all men or any number of men other than as they chanced at the -same moment to be acted on by the same influence--even as when a hundred -ant-hills are in motion under the same burst of sunshine. And, still, -chiefly for the sake of the last scheme, I should like to do something -of the kind. My enlightened fetish-divine would have been an Okenist, a -zoo-magnetist and (a priest of) the night-side of Nature. - -[For the fragment entitled "Mahomet," see _P. W._, 1893, p. 139, and -editor's _Note_, p. 615.] - - -[Sidenote: PRUDENCE _VERSUS_ FRIENDSHIP] - -Among the countless arguments against the Paleyans state, this too--Can -a wise moral legislator have made _prudence_ the true principle-ground, -and guide of moral conduct, where in almost all cases in which there is -contemplation to act wrong the first appearances of prudence are in -favour of immorality, and, in order to ground the contrary on a -principle of prudence, it is necessary to refine, to calculate, to look -far onward into an uncertain future? Is this a guide, or primary guide, -that for ever requires a guide against itself? Is it not a strange -system which sets prudence against prudence? Compare this with the Law -of Conscience--Is it not its specific character to be immediate, -positive, unalterable? In short, _a priori_, state the requisites of a -moral guide, and apply them first to prudence, and then to the law of -pure reason or conscience, and ask if we need fear the result if the -Judge is pure from all bribes and prejudices. - -What then are the real dictates of prudence as drawn from every man's -experience in late manhood, and so lured from the intoxication of -youth, hope, and love? How cold, how dead'ning, what a dire vacuum they -would leave in the soul, if the high and supreme sense of duty did not -form a root out of which new prospects budded. What, I say, is the clear -dictate of prudence in the matter of friendship? Assuredly to _like_ -only, and never to be so attached as to be stripped naked by the loss. A -friend may be a great-coat, a beloved a couch, but never, never our -necessary clothing, our only means of quiet heart-repose! And, yet, with -this the mind of a generous man would be so miserable, that prudence -itself would fight against prudence, and advise him to drink off the -draught of Hope, spite of the horrid and bitter dregs of disappointment, -with which the draught will assuredly finish. - -Though I have said that duty is a consolation, I have not affirmed that -the scar of the wound of disappointed love and insulted, betrayed -fidelity would be removed in _this_ life. No! it will not--nay, the very -duty must for ever keep alive feelings the appropriate objects of which -are indeed in another world; but yet our human nature cannot avoid at -times the connection of those feelings with their original or their -first forms and objects; and so far, therefore, from removing the scar, -will often and often make the wound open and bleed afresh. But, still, -we know that the feeling is not objectless, that the counterfeit has a -correspondent genuine, and this is the comfort. - - -[Sidenote: A POET ON POETRY] - -_Canzone XVIII. fra le Rime di Dante_ is a poem of wild and interesting -images, intended as an enigma, and to me an enigma it remains, spite of -all my efforts. Yet it deserves transcription and translation. A.D. 1806 -[? 1807]. - -"Tre donne intorno al cuor mi son venute," &c. - -[After the four first lines the handwriting is that of my old, dear, and -honoured friend, Mr. Wade, of Bristol.--S. T. C.] - -_Ramsgate, Sept. 2nd, 1819._--I _begin_ to understand the above poem, -after an interval from 1805, during which no year passed in which I did -not reperuse, I might say construe, parse, and spell it, twelve times at -least--such a fascination had it, spite of its obscurity! It affords a -good instance, by the bye, of that soul of _universal_ significance in a -true poet's composition, in addition to the specific meaning. - - -[Sidenote: GREAT AND LITTLE MINDS] - -Great minds can and do create the taste of the age, and one of the -contingent causes which warp the taste of nations and ages is, that men -of genius in part yield to it, and in part are acted on by the taste of -the age. - - -Common minds may be compared to the component drops of the stream of -life--men of genius to the large and small bubbles. What if they break? -they are still as good as the rest--drops of water. - - -[Sidenote: SUBJECT AND OBJECT] - -In youth our happiness is hope; in age the recollection of the hopes of -youth. What else can there be?--for the substantial mind, for the _I_, -what else can there be? Pleasure? Fruition? Filter hope and memory from -pleasure, and the more entire the fruition the more is it the death of -the _I_. A neutral product results that may exist for others, but no -longer for itself--a coke or a slag. To make the object one with us, we -must become one with the object--_ergo, an_ object. _Ergo_, the object -must be itself a subject--partially a favourite dog, principally a -friend, wholly God, _the_ Friend. God is Love--that is, an object that -is absolutely subject (God is a spirit), but a subject that for ever -condescends to become the object for those that meet Him subjectively. -[As in the] Eucharist, [He is] verily and truly present to the Faithful, -neither [by a] _trans_ nor _con_, but [by] _substantiation_. - - -[Sidenote: THE THREE ESTATES OF BEING] - -We might as well attempt to conceive more than three dimensions of -space, as to imagine more than three kinds of living existence--God, -man, and beast. And even of these the last (division) is obscure, and -scarce endures a fixed contemplation without passing into an unripe or -degenerated humanity. - - -[Sidenote: A LIFE-LONG ERROR] - -My mother told my wife that I was a year younger, and that there was a -blunder made either in the baptismal register itself or in the -transcript sent for my admission into Christ's Hospital; and Mrs. C., -who is older than myself, believes me only 48. Be this as it may, in -_life_, if not in years, I am, alas! nearer to 68. - -[S. T. C. was born on October 21, 1772. Consequently, on October 20, -1819, he was not yet forty-seven. He entered his forty-eighth year -October 21, 1819.] - - -[Sidenote: AN UNWRITTEN SONNET] - -N.B.--A sonnet on the child collecting shells and pebbles on the -sea-shore or lake-side, and carrying each with a fresh shout of delight -and admiration to the mother's apron, who smiles and assents to each -"This is pretty!" "Is not that a nice one?" and then when the prattler -is tired of its _conchozetetic_ labours lifts up her apron and throws -them out on her apron. Such are our first discoveries both in science -and philosophy.--S. T. Coleridge, Oct. 21, 1819. - - -[Sidenote: MILTON AND SHAKSPERE] - -Found Mr. G. with Hartley in the garden, attempting to explain to -himself and to Hartley a feeling of a something not present in Milton's -works, that is, in "Paradise Lost," "Paradise Regained," and "Samson -Agonistes," which he _did_ feel delightedly in the "Lycidas," and (as I -added afterwards) in the Italian sonnets compared with the English. And -this appeared to me to be the _poet_ appearing and wishing to appear as -the poet, and, likewise, as the man, as much as, though more rare than, -the father, the brother, the preacher, and the patriot. Compare with -Milton, Chaucer's "Fall of the Leaf" and Spenser throughout, and you -cannot but _feel_ what Gillman meant to convey. What is the solution? -This, I believe--but I must premise that there is a _synthesis_ of -intellectual insight including the mental object, the organ of the -correspondent being indivisible, and this (O deep truth!) because the -objectivity consists in the universality of its subjectiveness--as when -it _sees_, and millions _see_ even so, and the seeing of the millions is -what constitutes to _A_ and to each of the millions the _objectivity_ of -the sight, the equivalent to a common object--a synthesis of _this_, I -say, and of proper external object which we call _fact_. Now, this it is -which we find in religion. It is more than philosophical truth--it is -other and more than historical fact; it is not made up by the addition -of the one to the other, but it is the _identity_ of both, the -co-inherence. - -Now, this being understood, I proceed to say, using the term objectivity -(arbitrarily, I grant), for this identity of truth and fact, that Milton -hid the poetry in or transformed (not trans-substantiated) the poetry -into this objectivity, while Shakspere, in all things, the divine -opposite or antithetic correspondent of the divine Milton, transformed -the objectivity into poetry. - -Mr. G. observed as peculiar to the Hamlet, that it alone, of all -Shakspere's plays, presented to him a moving along _before_ him; while -in others it was a moving, indeed, but with which he himself moved -equally in all and with all, and without any external something by which -the motion was manifested, even as a man would move in a balloon--a -sensation of motion, but not a sight of moving and having been moved. -And why is this? Because of all the characters of Shakspere's plays -Hamlet is the only character with which, by contra-distinction from the -rest of the _dramatis personæ_, the fit and capable reader identifies -himself as the representation of his own contemplative and strictly -proper and very own being (action, etc., belongs to others, the moment -we call it our own)--hence the events of the play, with all the -characters, move because you stand still. In the other plays, your -identity is equally diffused over all. Of no parts can you say, as in -Hamlet, they are moving. But ever it is _we_, or that period and portion -of human action, which is unified into a dream, even as in a dream the -personal unity is diffused and severalised (divided to the sight though -united in the dim feeling) into a sort of reality. Even so [it is with] -the styles of Milton and Shakspere--the same weight of effect from the -exceeding _felicity_ (subjectively) of Shakspere, and the exceeding -_propriety_ (_extra arbitrium_) of Milton. - - -[Sidenote: A ROYAL ROAD TO KNOWLEDGE] - -The best plan, I think, for a man who would wish his mind to continue -growing is to find, in the first place, some means of ascertaining for -himself whether it does or no; and I can think of no better than early -in life, say after three-and-twenty, to procure gradually the works of -some two or three great writers--say, for instance, Bacon, Jeremy -Taylor, and Kant, with the _De Republicâ_, _De Legibus_, the _Sophistes_ -and _Politicus_ of Plato, and the _Poetics_, _Rhetorics_, and _Politics_ -of Aristotle--and amidst all other reading, to make a point of -reperusing some one, or some weighty part of some one of these every -four or five years, having from the beginning a separate note-book for -each of these writers, in which your impressions, suggestions, -conjectures, doubts and judgments are to be recorded with date of each, -and so worded as to represent most sincerely the exact state of your -convictions at the time, such as they would be if you did not (which -this plan will assuredly make you do sooner or later) anticipate a -change in them from increase of knowledge. "It is possible that I am in -the wrong, but so it now appears to me, after my best attempts; and I -must therefore put it down in order that I may find myself so, if so I -am." It would make a little volume to give in detail all the various -moral as well as intellectual advantages that would result from the -systematic observation of the plan. Diffidence and hope would -reciprocally balance and excite each other. A continuity would be given -to your being, and its progressiveness ensured. All your knowledge -otherwise obtained, whether from books or conversation or experience, -would find centres round which it would organise itself. And, lastly, -the habit of confuting your past self, and detecting the causes and -occasions of your having mistaken or overlooked the truth, will give you -both a quickness and a winning kindness, resulting from sympathy, in -exposing the errors of others, as if you were an _alter ego_, of his -mistake. And such, indeed, will your antagonist appear to you, another -past self--in all points in which the falsity is not too plainly a -derivation from a corrupt heart and the predominance of bad passion or -worldly interests overlaying the love of truth as truth. And even in -this case the liveliness with which you will so often have expressed -yourself in your private note-books, in which the words, unsought for -and untrimmed because intended for your own eye, exclusively, were the -first-born of your first impressions, when you were either enkindled by -admiration of your writer, or excited by a humble disputing with him -reimpersonated in his book, will be of no mean rhetorical advantage to -you, especially in public and extemporary debate or animated -conversation. - - -[Sidenote: THE IDEA OF GOD] - -Did you deduce your own being? Even that is less absurd than the conceit -of deducing the Divine being? Never would you have had the notion, had -you not had the idea--rather, had not the idea worked in you like the -memory of a name which we cannot recollect and yet feel that we have and -which reveals its existence in the mind only by a restless anticipation -and proves its _a priori_ actuality by the almost explosive -instantaneity with which it is welcomed and recognised on its -re-emersion out of the cloud, or its re-ascent from the horizon of -consciousness. - - -[Sidenote: APHORISMS AND ADAGES] - -I should like to know whether or how far the delight I feel, and have -always felt, in adages or aphorisms of universal or very extensive -application is a general or common feeling with men, or a peculiarity of -my own mind. I cannot describe how much pleasure I have derived from -"Extremes meet," for instance, or "Treat everything according to its -nature," and, the last, "Be"! In the last I bring all inward rectitude -to its test, in the former all outward morality to its rule, and in the -first all problematic results to their solution, and reduce apparent -contraries to correspondent opposites. How many hostile tenets has it -enabled me to contemplate as fragments of truth, false only by negation -and mutual exclusion? - - -[Sidenote: IGNORE THYSELF July 12, 1822] - -I have myself too often of late used the phrase "rational self-love" the -same as "enlightened self-love." O no more of this! What have love, -reason or light to do with _self_, except as the dark and evil spirit -which it is given to them to overcome! _Soul-love_, if you please. O -there is more stuff of thought in our simple and pious fore-elders' -adjuration, "Take pity of your poor soul!" than in all the volumes of -Paley, Rochefoucauld, and Helvetius! - - -[Sidenote: RUGIT LEO] - -N.B.--The injurious manner in which men of genius are treated, not only -as authors, but even when they are in social company. _A_ is believed to -be, or talked of as, a man of unusual talent. People are anxious to -meet him. If he says little or nothing, they wonder at the report, never -considering whether they themselves were fit either to excite, or if -self-excited to receive and comprehend him. But with the simplicity of -genius he attributes more to them than they have, and they put questions -that cannot be answered but by a return to first principles, and then -they complain of him as not conversing, but lecturing. "He is quite -intolerable," "Might as well be hearing a sermon." In short, in answer -to some objection, _A_ replies, "Sir, this rests on the distinction -between an _idea_ and an _image_, and, likewise, its difference from a -perfect _conception_." "Pray, sir, explain." Because he does not and -cannot [state the case as concisely as if he had been appealed to about -a hand at] whist, 'tis "Lord! how long he talks," and they never ask -themselves, Did this man force himself into your company? Was he not -dragged into it? What is the practical result? That the man of genius -should live as much as possible with beings that simply love him, from -relationship or old association, or with those that have the same -feelings with himself; but in all other company he will do well to cease -to be the man of genius, and make up his mind to appear dull or -commonplace as a companion, to be the most silent except upon the most -trivial subjects of any in the company, to turn off questions with a -joke or a pun as not suiting a wine-table, and to trust only to his -writings. - - -[Sidenote: A BROKEN HEART] - -Few die of a _broken heart_, and these few (the surgeons tell us) know -nothing of it, and, dying suddenly, leave to the dissector the first -discovery. O this is but the shallow remark of a hard and unthinking -prosperity! Have you never seen a stick broken in the middle, and yet -cohering by the rind? The fibres, half of them actually broken and the -rest sprained and, though tough, unsustaining? O many, many are the -broken-hearted for those who know what the moral and practical heart of -the man is! - - -[Sidenote: VOX HIEMALIS Thursday, Sept. 30, 1824] - -Now the breeze through the stiff and brittle-becoming foliage of the -trees counterfeits the sound of a rushing stream or water-flood suddenly -sweeping by. The sigh, the modulated continuousness of the murmur is -exchanged for the confusion of overtaking sounds--the self-evolution of -the One, for the clash or stroke of ever-commencing contact of the -multitudinous, without interspace, by confusion. The short gusts rustle -and the ear feels the unlithesome dryness, before the eye detects the -coarser, duller, though deeper green, deadened and not [yet] awakened -into the hues of decay--echoes of spring from the sepulchral vault of -winter. The aged year, conversant with the forms of its youth and -forgetting all the intervals, feebly reproduces them [as it were, from], -memory. - - -[Sidenote: CONSTANCY Friday, June 9, 1826] - -"Constancy lives in realms above." This exclusion of constancy from the -list of earthly virtues may be a poet's exaggeration, but, certainly, it -is of far rarer occurrence in _all_ relations of life than the young and -warm-hearted are willing to believe, but in cases of _exclusive_ -attachment (that is, in Love, properly so-called, and yet distinct from -Friendship), and in the _highest_ form of the Virtue, it is _so_ rare -that I cannot help doubting whether an instance of _mutual_ constancy in -effect ever existed. For there are two sorts of constancy, the one -negative, where there is no _transfer_ of affection, where the bond of -attachment is not broken though it may be attenuated to a thread--this -may be met with, not so seldom, and, where there is goodness of heart, -it may be expected--but the other sort, or _positive_ constancy, where -the affection endures in the same intensity with the same or increased -tenderness and _nearness_, of this it is that I doubt whether once in an -age an instance occurs where _A_ feels it toward _B_, and _B_ feels it -towards _A_, and _vice versâ_. - - -[Sidenote: FLOWERS AND LIGHT April 18, 1826] - -Spring flowers, I have observed, look best in the day, and by sunshine: -but summer and autumnal flower-pots by lamp or candle-light. I have now -before me a flower-pot of cherry-blossoms, polyanthuses, double violets, -periwinkles, wall-flowers, but how dim and dusky they look! The scarlet -anemone is an exception, and three or four of them with all the rest of -the flower-glass sprays of white blossoms, and one or two periwinkles -for the sake of the dark green leaves, green stems, and flexible elegant -form, make a lovely group both by sun and by candle-light. - - -Grove, Highgate. - -[Sidenote: THE BREATH OF SPRING Feb. 28, 1827] - -What an interval! Heard the singing birds this morning in our garden for -the first time this year, though it rained and blew fiercely; but the -long frost has broken up, and the wind, though fierce, was warm and -westerly. - - -[Sidenote: THE IDEA OF LIFE May 5, 1827] - -To the right understanding of the most awfully _concerning_ declaration -of Holy Writ there has been no greater obstacle than the want of insight -into the nature of Life--what it is and what it is not. But in order to -this, the mind must have been raised to the contemplation of the -_Idea_--the life celestial, to wit--or the distinctive essence and -character of the Holy Spirit. Here Life is _Love_--communicative, -outpouring love. _Ergo_, the terrestrial or the Life of Nature ever the -shadow and opposite of the Divine is appropriative, absorbing -_appetence_. But the great mistake is, that the soul cannot continue -without life; for, if so, with what propriety can the portion of the -reprobate soul be called Death? What if the natural life have two -possible terminations--true Being and the falling back into the dark -Will? - - -[Sidenote: A COMPREHENSIVE FORMULA] - -The painter-parson, Rev. Mr. Judkin, is about to show off a Romish -priest converted to the Protestant belief, on Sunday next at his church, -and asked of me (this day, at Mr. Gray's, Friday, 27th July, 1827) -whether I knew of any form of recantation but that of Archbishop -Tenison. I knew nothing of Tenison's or any other, but expressed my -opinion that no other recantation ought to be required than a -declaration that he admitted no outward authority superior to, or -co-ordinate with, the canonical Scriptures, and no interpreter that -superseded or stood in the place of the Holy Spirit, enlightening the -mind of each true believer, according to his individual needs. I can -conceive a person holding all the articles that distinguish the Romish -from the Protestant conception, with this one exception; and, yet, if he -did make this exception, and professed to believe them, because he -thought they were contained in, or to be fairly inferred from, right -reason and the Scriptures, I should consider him as true a Protestant -as Luther, Knox, or Calvin, and a far better than Laud and his -compeers, however meanly I might think of him as a philosopher and -theologian. The laying so great a stress on transubstantiation I have -long regarded as the great calamity or error of the Reformation--if not -constrained by circumstances, the great _error_--or, if constrained, the -great _calamity_. - - -[Sidenote: THE NIGHT IS AT HAND August 1, 1828] - -The sweet prattle of the chimes--counsellors pleading in the court of -Love--then the clock, the solemn sentence of the mighty Judge--long -pause between each pregnant, inappellable word, too deeply weighed to be -reversed in the High-Justice-Court of Time and Fate. A more richly -solemn sound than this eleven o'clock at Antwerp I never heard--dead -enough to be opaque as central gold, yet clear enough to be the mountain -air. - - - - -INDEX OF PROPER NAMES - - - _Abergavenny, The_, 132 - - Achilles, 25 - - Adam, 51 - - Adar River, 261 - - Africa, 70, 71 - - Alexander the Great, 256 - - Alfieri, 230 - - Allen, Robert, 139, 140 _n_ - - Allston, Washington, 167, 175 - - Anacreon, 183, 263 - - Antonio, St., 78 - - Antwerp, 307 - - Aphrodite, 192 - - Apollo, 110 - - Ariosto, 151, 230 - - Aristotle, 183, 222, 268, 298 - - Arne, 270 - - Arrian, 183 - - Augustine, St., 179 - - - Bacon, F. (Lord Verulam), 21, 79, 151, 177, 183, 298 - - Ball, Sir Alexander, 206 - - Ball, Lady, 92 - - Barrow, J., 26, 47 - - Bassenthwaite, 18 - - Barclay, W. ("Argenis"), 207 - - Beaumont, Francis, 207 - - Beaumont, Sir George, 67, 79, 145 - - Beaumont, Lady, 67 - - Beddoes, Thomas, M.D., 239 _n_ - - Bentham, 127 - - Berkeley, Bishop, 183 - - Bernard, Saint, 273 - - Bernouilli, 152 - - Beverley, 94 - - Blackmore, 24, 270 - - Blount, Sir Edward, 63 - - Blumenbach, 67 - - Boccaccio, 46 - - Bonnet, 152 - - Borrowdale, 34, 35, 52 - - Bosch, 182 - - Boyer, J., 14 - - Brandelhow, 46 - - Bristol, 293 _n_ - - Brunck, 182 - - Brougham, Lord, 250 - - Brown, Dr. J., 14 - - Browne, William, 158 and _n_ - - Bruno, Giordano, 16, 17 _n_, 72, 73, 151 - - Buffon, 209 - - Buonaparte, 75 - - Burdett, Sir F., 174, 255 - - Burton, Robert, 25 - - - Cain, 51 - - Cairns, M. J., 9 - - Calvin, 307 - - Cambridge, 214 - - Campbell, T., 156 - - Campeachy, Bay of, 208 - - Caracciolo, 87 - - Caernarvon Castle, 71 - - Castle Crag, 34 - - Castlerigg, 43 - - Catullus, 165 - - Cecilia, St., 200 - - Ceres, 110 - - Cervantes, 152 - - Chantrey, 286 - - Charlemagne, 170 - - Chartreuse, 119 - - Chaucer, 296 - - Chersites, Theodoras, 21 - - China, 29, 132, 151 - - Christ's Hospital, 46, 295 - - Cicero, 23 _n_ - - Circe, 192 - - Clarkson, Thomas, 24 - - Clarkson, Mrs., 167 - - Claudian, 165 - - Clotharius, 211 - - Cobbett, W., 76, 255 - - Cochrane (Earl of Dundonald). 237 - - Coleorton, 171 _n_ - - Coleridge, Berkeley, 120 - - Coleridge, Derwent, 18, 29, 120 - - Coleridge, Hartley, 3, 13, 15, 24, 40, 41, 65, 66, 96, 135, 296 - - Coleridge, Colonel James, 158 _n_. - - Coleridge, S. T., 9, 23 _n_, 64 _n_, 75 _n_, 103, 140 _n_, 157 and _n_, - 158 _n_, 169, 177 _n_, 195 _n_, 196 _n_, 203 _n_, 211 _n_, 225 _n_, - 236 _n_, 242 _n_, 246 _n_, 248 _n_, 263 _n_, 273 _n_, 293 _n_, - 295 and _n_ - - Coleridge, Sara (Mrs. S. T.), 9, 218, 295 - - Coleridge, Sara (Mrs. H. N. Coleridge), 120, 208 _n_. - - Collins, 5 - - Combe, S., 129 - - Combe Satchfield, 158 _n_. - - Condillac, 79 - - Constantine, Budæo-Tusan, 182 - - Cordova, 287 - - Cottle, Joseph, 60, 86, 235 - - _Courier_ Office, 193, 203 _n_ - - Cowper, William, 121, 128 - - Cuthill, Mr., 182, 183 - - - Dampier, Travels of, 208 - - Dante, 25, 151, 229, 230, 293 - - Daphnis, D'Orvilles, 183 - - Darwin, Dr., 5, 92, 151, 280 - - David, King, 235 - - Davy, Sir H., 218 - - Dennison, Mr., 144, 146 - - De Quincey, 177 _n_, 183 - - Diogenes, 97 - - Domitian, 159 - - Drayton, 154 - - Dresden, 85 - - Dryden, 159 - - Duke Richard, 158 _n_ - - Dundas (Lord Melville), 151 - - Durham, 35, 36 - - Dyer, George, 9 _n_, 67 - - - Edgeworth, Miss, 117 - - Elizabeth, Queen, 231 - - Empedocles, 163 - - Eolus, 193 - - Epictetus, 183 - - Erigena, Joannes Scotus, 58 - - Escot, 157 _n_ - - Etna, 114 - - Euphormio, 207 - - Exeter, 67 - - - Favell, 28 _n_ - - Fay, Benedict, 154 - - Fénelon, 133 - - Fichte, 106, 133, 169, 183 - - Fielding, 166, 167 - - Flaminius, 207, 263 - - Fletcher, John, 207 - - Fracastorius, 148, 207, 263 - - France, 75, 119, 120, 152 - - - Geddes, Dr. Alexander, 109 _n_ - - Geneva, Lake of, 261 - - Genoa, 7 - - Germany, 8 _n_, 151, 169, 284, 289 - - Gibbon, 272 - - Gillman, James, 296, 297 - - Gillman, Mrs., 273 - - Glanvillians, The, 281 - - Godwin, W., 13, 66, 68 - - Goethe, 229 - - Göttingen, 67 - - Grasmere, 76, 132 - - Gray, Thomas, 5, 270 - - Greece, 110, 177, 206, 289 - - Greenough, 68 - - Greta River, 19, 29, 43, 44 - - Greta Hall, 218 _n_ - - Greville, Fulk, 17 - - Grysdale Pike, 19, 46 - - Guarini, 191 - - Guyon, Madame, 133, 152 - - - Haarlem, 67 - - Halim II., 287 - - Hamburg, 101 - - Harrington, J., 79, 151 - - Hartz, 211 and _n_ - - Hayley, 151 - - Hazlitt, W., 9, 35, 36 - - Hebrides, 129 - - Helvellyn, 52 - - Helvetius, 301 - - Henry, Prince, 158 - - Herbert's, St., Island, 32 - - Hobbes, 13, 183 - - Holcroft, 66, 68 - - Homer, 207, 270 - - Horace, 176 - - Hume, David, 24, 79, 102, 151, 272 - - Huss, 215 - - Hutchinson, Mary (Mrs. Wordsworth), 8 _n_, 20 - - Hutchinson, Sarah, 8 _n_ - - - India, 132 - - Ireland, 177 - - Italy, 152, 229 - - - Java, 271 - - Jennings, J., 60 - - Johnson, Dr., 115, 151, 155, 272 - - Jonson, Ben, 207 - - Judkin, Rev. Mr., 306 - - - Kant, 12, 106, 151, 169, 183 - - Keswick, 54 _n_, 101 - - Klopstock, 101, 229 - - Knox, John, 164, 307 - - - Lamb, Charles, 66, 140 _n_. - - Latrigg, 60 _n_ - - Laud, 307 - - Lavater, 223 - - Leckie, 183 - - Leibnitz, 147, 151, 152, 183 - - Leighton, 287 - - Lessing, 151 - - Linnæus, 268 - - Lloyd, Charles, 107 - - Lloyd, David, 230 - - Locke, 24, 151, 155, 183, 185 - - Loch Leven, 208 - - Lodore, 34 - - London, 9, 28, 194 - - Lorraine, Claude, 286 - - Lupus, 211 - - Luther, 11, 152, 215, 239, 307 - - Lyceum, 193 - - Lyonnet, 94 - - - Mackintosh, Sir J., 6, 126, 198 - - Malone, E., 88, 89 _n_ - - Malta, 75 _n_, 83, 87, 98, 104, 107, 130, 140 _n_, 144, 187, 197 - - Malthus, Rev. J., 64 - - Marathon, 74 _n_ - - Marini, G. B., 191 - - Martial, 159 - - Massinger, 207 - - Mediterranean, 85, 109 - - Metastasio, 166, 229 - - Middleton, Sir Hugh, 250 - - Milton, 14, 24, 72, 73, 120, 151, 152, 159, 161, 215 _n_, 229, 253, - 271, 296, 297, 298 - - Mohammed, 290, 291 _n_. - - Molière, 152 - - Montagu, Basil, 218 _n_. - - Moses, 9, 268 - - Mylius, Johann Christoph., 96 - - - Naples, King of, 87 - - Naucratius, 21 - - Nelson, Lord, 237 - - Newlands, 52 - - Newmarket, 168 - - New River, 168 - - Newton, Sir Isaac, 214 - - Nile, 20 - - Norway, 284 - - - Okenist, An, 291 - - Orleans, 211 - - Otter River, 29 - - Otterton, 158 _n_ - - Ottery St. Mary, 29, 157 _n_, 158 _n_ - - Ovid, 165 - - - Paine, Tom, 226 - - Paley, Archdeacon, 35, 151, 155, 265, 301 - - Paracelsus, 14, 232 - - Parisatis, 176 - - Parkinson (_Theatrum Botanicum_), 59 - - Pascal, 152 - - Pasley, Captain, 145, 154 - - Paul, Jean (Richter), 235 - - Paul, St., 93, 163 - - Penelope, Nature a, 100 - - Peter, St., 215 - - Petrarch, 262, 263 _n_ - - Picts, The, 129 - - Pindar, 168 - - Pitt, 151 - - Plato, 31, 133, 183, 298 - - Plotinus, 48, 49, 183 - - Polyclete, 192 - - Poole, T., 70, 153 - - Pope, 151, 166, 233 - - Porphyry, 183 - - Port Royal, 208 - - Porte, The, 289 - - Portugal, 140 _n_ - - Price, Dr., 167 - - Priestley, Dr., 151, 155 - - Prince, The Black, 71 - - Proclus, 17, 63, 183 - - Proserpine, 110 - - Psyche, 89, 109, 142 - - Pygmalion, 192 - - Pyramids, The, 258 - - Pythagoras, 55, 231 - - - Quintilian, 23 _n_ - - - Raleigh, Sir W., 148, 250 - - Raphael, 286 - - Ray (or Wray), John, 35, 36 - - Reignia, Captain, 89 - - Reimarus, Herman Samuel, 91 _n_, 92 - - Rhone River, 261 - - Richardson, Samuel, 166, 167 - - Rickman, J., 67 - - Robertson, William, 272 - - Rochefoucauld, 301 - - Rock, Captain (son of), 208 - - Rogers, Samuel, 156 - - Rome, Church of, 58, 124, 215 - - Rome, 110, 129, 206, 289 - - Russia, 170, 289 - - - Scapula, 182 - - Scarlett (James Lord Abinger), 198 - - Schelling, 169, 183 - - Schiller, 150, 161, 181, 211 _n_, 229 - - Scott, Sir Walter, 74 _n_ - - Scotus, Duns, 222 - - Sens, 211 - - Shakspere, 21, 24, 71, 72, 73, 88, 89 _n_, 97, 108, 115, 127, 128, 145, - 147, 150, 151, 152, 161, 180, 286, 297, 298 - - Sharp, Grenville, 250 - - Sharp, Richard, 158, 198 - - Sheridan, R. B., 41, 177 - - Shield, 270 - - Sidney, Sir Philip, 17, 151 - - Simonides, 163 - - Skiddaw, 18, 19, 52 - - Smith, Robert, 198 - - Smith, Sydney, 198 - - Sorel, Dr., 107 - - Sotheby, William, 53 - - South, 47 - - Southey, 6, 28 _n_, 36, 107, 158 _n_, 221, 290 - - Spain, 70, 152, 287 - - Spenser, 296 - - Spinoza, 57, 81, 183 - - Staunton, Sir G., 271 - - Stephen's, St., 211 - - Stephen's Thesaurus, 182 - - Stewart, Sir James, 1 - - Stoddart (Dr. afterwards Sir J.), 74, 75 _n_, 107, 140 _n_, 167 - - Stowey, Upper, 143 - - Stowey, Nether, 60 _n_ - - Strabo, Geographicus, 179 - - Strada, Prolusions of, 183 - - Strozzi, Giambatista, 225 - - Stuart, Daniel, 195 - - Sweden, 284 - - Swedenborg, 286 - - Swift, Dean, 24, 151, 164 - - Swinside, 19 - - Switzerland, 129 - - Syracuse, 95 - - - Tantalus, 234 - - Taylor, Dorothy, 158 _n_ - - Taylor, Frances, 158 _n_ - - Taylor, Jeremy, 12, 20, 76, 298 - - Taylor, Thomas, 17 - - Teme, Valley of, 26 - - Tenison, Archbishop, 306 - - Theophrastus, 268 - - Tiberius, 37 - - Tibullus, 165 - - Tobin, J., 68, 139, 140 _n_ - - Tyrol, The, 284 - - - Underwood, Mr., 68 - - Unzer, D., 94 - - - Valetta, 75 _n_, 144 - - Van Huysum, 286 - - Varrius, 134 - - Vida, 263 - - Vincent, Captain, 134 - - Virgil, 263 - - Virginia, 94 - - Voltaire, 152 - - Voss, 151, 229 - - Vossius, 134 - - - Wade, Mr., 293 _n_ - - Wedgwood, T., 27, 91 - - Whinlatter, 46, 50 - - White, Mr. (of Clare Hall, Camb.), 225 - - Wickliffe, 215 - - Wieland, 229 - - Wilberforce, 250 - - Willoughby, Lord, 231 - - Wilson, John, 60 _n_ - - Windybrow, 60 _n_ - - Withop Fells, 47 - - Wollstonecraft, Mary, 66 - - Wordsworth, Dorothy, 60 _n_ - - Wordsworth, John, 132 - - Wordsworth, William, 4, 10 _n_, 30, 35, 36, 60 _n_, 70, 71, - 79, 101, 131, 137, 138 _n_, 147, 151, 163, 169, 171 _n_, - 201 _n_, 207, 208 _n_, 221, 251 _n_ - - Wyndham, 41, 237 - - - Zinzendorf, 286 - - - - -INDEX OF TITLES - -NOTE.--_Brief paragraphs and sentences to which no title has been given, -in the text will be found indexed under the following headings._ - - - Abstruse Research, 53-56 - - Anecdotes, A Sheaf of, 66-68 - - Aphorisms and Pithy Sentences, 253-256 - - Comparisons and Contrasts, 5-7 - - Country and Town, 28-29 - - Dreams and Shadows, 172-173 - - Duty and Experience, 2-3 - - For the _Soother in Absence_, 84-85; 86-87; 95-97; 99-100; 115-118; - 147-150; 159-161; 162-165; 175-180 - - Hints for _The Friend_, 209, 210; 221-223; 230-233 - - Observations and Reflections, 17-21 - - _Seriores Rosæ_, 274 - - Things Visible and Invisible, 7-14 - - Thoughts, a Crowd of, 58-61 - - Thoughts and Fancies, 22-25 - - Transcripts from my Velvet Pocket Books, 26-28 - - - - -INDEX - - - _Abstruse Research_, 53-55 - Face, the phantom of, 54 - Eye-spectra, 55 - Reluctance of mind to analyse, 53 - Soul within the body. Window at Keswick, 54 - - A bliss, &c., 264 - - Adam's death, 51 - - Alas! they had been friends, &c., 62 - - Allston, To, 169 - - All thoughts, all passions, &c., 224 - - A man's a man, &c., 51 - - Analogy, 89-91 - - Anecdote, a genuine, 218 - - _Anecdotes, a Sheaf of_, 66-68 - Beaumont, Sir G., and gauze spectacles, 67 - Beaumont, Lady, her prayers, 67 - Göttingen and the _hospes_, 67 - Godwin, Holcroft, and Underwood, 68 - Holcroft and M. Wollstonecraft, 66 - Exeter, the organ pipe, 67 - Lamb, Charles, a call upon, 66 - Rickman and George Dyer, 67 - - Anticipations in Nature, &c., 136 - - Aphorisms and Adages, 300-301 - - _Aphorisms and Pithy Sentences_, 253-256 - Bookmaking, 256 - Burdett, Sir Francis, 255 - Catamaran, man compared with, 253 - Convalescence without love, 254 - Half-reconciliation, 254 - Hunter, the light of his torch, 255 - Love, inspired by superiority, 253 - Money, the depreciation of, 254 - Peninsulating river, 255 - Philosophy, its plummet-line, 255 - Sun, the rosy fingers of, 254 - Vision and appetite, 255 - - Architecture and Climate, 194 - - Art, the pyramid in, 98 - An afterthought, 99 - - As the sparks fly upward, 110 - - Ascend a step, etc., 158-159 - - Aspiration, a pious, 213 - - Association, 226 - - Association, of streamy, 55 - - A time to cry out, 220-221 - - Attention and sensation, 128 - - _Auri sacra fames_, 44 - - Ave Phoebe Imperator, 63 - - - Being, the three estates of, 294 - - Bells, concerning, 210-212 - Clotharius, 211 - Latin distichs, 210 - Names of bells, 211 - Passing bells, 211 - Waggon-horse, &c., in the Hartz, 211 - Note on Schiller's 'Song of the Bell,' &c., 211 - - Bibliological memoranda, 182-183 - - Bird, the captive, 193 - - Birds caged, especially the robin, 194 - - Bliss, a land of, 286-287 - - Book-knowledge and experience, 129 - - Book-learning for legislators, 285 - - Books in the air, 206-207 - - Bright October, 34 - - Browne, William, of Ottery and Note, 157-158 - - Bruno, Giordano, 16, 17 - - Bulls in action, 156 - - But love is indestructible, 250 - - - Candour another name for cant, 75 - - Catholic reunion, 215 - - Cast not your pearls, &c., 80-81 - - Ceres, the conversion of, 110 - - _C'est magnifique_, etc., 258 - - Children of a larger growth, 204 - - Christabel, a hint for, 223 - - Chymical analogies, 204-206 - - Clerical errors, the psychology of, 181-182 - - _Cogitare est laborare_, 66 - - Communicable, the, 32 - - _Comparisons and Contrasts_, 5-7 - Constitution, the, and rotten cheese, 6 - Eyes, meaning glances from, 6 - Genoa, "Liberty" on prisons of, 7 - Gratitude, the curse of, 7 - Intellect, snails of, 6 - Mackintosh, the style of, 6 - Malice, 6 - Minds, pygmy, 6 - Poetry, the effect of, 5 - Sot, the prayer of, 7 - Southey, an ostrich, 6 - Trout, his likeness to, 5 - Truth, the blindness of, 7 - Two dew-drops, 6 - Worldly-minded men, like owls, 7 - - Columba, St., 129 - - Conceits, verbal, 108 - - Conscience and immortality, 201-3 - - Constancy, etc., 304 - - Conversation, his, a nimiety, &c., 103-104 - - Converts, the intolerance of, 74 - - _Corruptio optimi pessima_, 92, 263 - - Cottle, an apology for, 86 - - Cottle, free version of the Psalms, 235 - - _Country and Town_, 28-29 - Calf-lowing, a reminiscence of Ottery, 29 - Coloured bottles, reflections of, 28 - Country, depraving effect of, 25 - Lecture, dream concerning a, 29 - Smiles on men and mountains, 29 - Stones like life, and life motionless as stones, 28 - - Critics, immature, 128 - - Criticism, a principle of, 30 - - Criticism, minute, 167 - - - Darwin's "Botanical Garden," 280 - - Death, the realisation of, 139-140 - - Delusion, an optical, 47 - - Devil, the, with a memory, 161-162 - - Devil, the, a recantation, 259-260 - - Distemper's worst calamity, 126-127 - - Distinction in union, 184 - - _Document humain_, 168 - - Dream, a, and a parenthesis, 40 - - Dreams, order in, 134 - - _Dreams and Shadows_, 172-173 - Idea, the descent of, 172 - Taper's cone of flame, a simile, 172 - "As in life's noisiest hour," etc., 172 - "You mould my thoughts," etc., 173 - - Drip, drip, drip, drip, 165 - - _Duty and Experience_, 2, 3 - Human happiness, 3 - Chymistry, a noble, 3 - Metaphysical opinion in anguish, 3 - Misfortunes a fertilising rain, 2 - Pleasure and pain, 2 - Real pain a panacea, 2 - - Duty and self-interest, 130-131 - - - Early death, 44, 45 - - Easter, the Northern, 138 - - Education, of, 227-228 - - Ego, the, 15 - - Egotism, 14 - - Empyrean, the, 125 - - England, the righteousness of, 284 - - Enthusiasm, 139 - - Entity, a superfluous, 217 - - Entomology _v._ ontology, 94 - - Epigram, a divine, 273 - - Error, a life-long (his age), 295 - - Etymology, 123-124 - - Evil, the origin of, 36-42 - - Evil produces evil, 131 - - Experience and book knowledge, 129-130 - - Experiment, a doubtful, 56 - - Extremes meet, 52, 53 - - - Facts and Fiction, 75 - - Fallings from us vanishings, 180-181 - - "Floods and general inundations," 282 - - First thoughts and friendship, 251, 252 - - Flowers and light, 304, 305 - - Flowers of speech, 269, 270 - - Form and feeling, 101 - - Formula, a comprehensive, 306-307 - - "For compassion a human heart," 282 - - _For the soother in absence_, 84-85 - Dreams and reveries, 85 - Dresden, the engraved cherry-stone, 85 - Mediterranean, the white sails on, 85 - Outwardly happy but no joy within, 84 - Sunset in winter, and summer-set, 84 - - _For the soother in absence_, 86-87 - Caracciolo and his floating corse, 87 - Final causes, 87 - Moonlight, crinkled circles on the sea, 87 - Religion repels the gay, 86 - Vicious thoughts and rhyme-terminations, 86 - Diogenes, why not? 97 - Interest and satisfaction, 97 - - _For the soother in absence_, 95-97 - Language, its growth, etc., 95 - Medical romance--a title, 96 - Mylius, 96 - Poets the bridlers of delight, 96 - Quintetta, the, in the Syracuse Opera, 95 - Recollections of pre-existent state, 96 - Tarantula dance of argumentation, 97 - - _For the soother in absence_, 99-100 - _Quisque sui faber_, 99 - Nature a Penelope, 100 - Root to the crown--growth of the flower, 99 - - _For the soother in absence_, 115-118 - Admiralty Court maxims, 116 - Convoy from England, 115 - Cyphers, 118 - Death and the sleeping baby, 118 - Faults and forewarnings, Miss Edgeworth, 117 - Johnson, Dr., and Shakspere, 115 - Pen-slit, the action of, 118 - Sealing-wax--where was it? 116 - Totalising, disease of, 116 - Voice and eye--precedence and sequence, 118 - Wafers, Maltese, 115 - - _For the soother in absence_, 147-150 - Conscience and watches, 150 - Contra-reasoning and controversy, 149 - Earthly losses and heaven, 150 - Eye, the twofold power of, 149 - Facts and the relation of them, 148 - Metaphor and reality, 149 - Negation begets errors, 147 - Speculative men not unpractical, 148 - War, the weariness of, no excuse for peace, 148 - Word-play a cat's cradle, 149 - Worldly men, their belief in sincerity, 149 - - _For the soother in absence_, 159-161 - _Co-arctation_, 161 - Dull souls may become great poet's bodies, 161 - Judgment compared to Belgic towns, 160 - Lover married, a frog in a well, 160 - Music and the genus and particular, 160 - Originality not claimed by the original, 160 - Shorthandists for the House of Commons, 161 - Stiletto and the rosary, 159 - Water-lily and the sponge, 160 - - _For the Soother in Absence_, 162-164 - Death and the tree of life, 163 - Grave, our growth in, 163 - Irish architect, 164 - _Scopæ viarum_, 164 - Shooting stars and bedtime, 162 - Sleep, the lovers', 164 - Swift and the pine-tree, 164 - Truth and action, 164 - Wordsworth, an aspiration, 163 - Yellowing leaflets, 163 - - _For the Soother in Absence_, 175-180 - Affliction and adversity, 176 - _Allapse_ of serpents, 176 - Atmosphere, every man his own, 176 - Augustine, St., and a friend's misjudgment, 179 - Blast, the, 178 - Blue sky, yellow green at twilight, 175 - Greece, the genius of, 177 - Hayfield and still life, 175 - _Heu! quam miserum_, 177 - Indian fig and death of an immortal, 177 - Kings, what kind of gods? 176 - Love, the mighty works of, 178 - Metallic pencils, 175 - Parisatis, and the poisoned knife, 176 - Peacock moulting, 178 - Shadow, 177 - Sheridan, and Bacon, 177 - Sunflowers, 175 - Strabo Geographicus on genius, 179 - Two faces, etc., 176-177 - Tycho Brahe, a subject for Allston, 175 - Water-wagtails, 178 - Woman, a passionate, a simile, 178 - - French language and poetry, 118-120 - - Friendship and marriage, 235-236 - - - Genius, 233 - - Genius, his own, 197-198 - - German philosophy, his indebtedness to, 106 - - God, the idea of, 300 - - Great and little minds, 293 - - Great men and national worth, 150-152 - - - Hail and farewell, 218 - - Halfway house, the, 195-197 - - Happiness made perfect, 142 - - Hazlitt, W., 36 - - Health, independence, and friendship, 248 - - Heart, a broken, 303 - - Heaviness, may endure, &c., 239, 240 - - Hesperus, 247, 248 - - _Hinc illa marginalia_, 91-92 - - _Hints for the Friend_, 209, 210 - Authors and Buffon's fan, 209 - Conscience good, and fine weather, 209 - Great deeds, great hearts, and great states, 209 - Hypocrisy, 210 - Massy misery, 210 - Mystery from wilful deafness, 210 - No glory and no Christianity, a total eclipse, 210 - Proud ignorance, 210 - Reformers like scourers of silver plate, 209 - - _Hints for the Friend_, 221-223 - Conscience, a pure, like a life-boat, 221 - Dame Quickly on parties, 222 - Duns Scotus on faith, 222 - Foliage, not the trunk, 223 - Helvetius, his selenography, 221 - Lavater and Narcissus, 223 - Pope, the, a simile, 233 - Reliance on God and man, 222 - Reviewers like jurymen, 223 - - _Hints for the Friend_, 230-233 - Amboynese, and their clove trees, 232 - Eloign, a word of Queen Elizabeth's, 231 - Esoteric Christianity, 231 - Mathematics and metaphysics, 230 - Monsoon, the Chinese elephant, 232 - Nature, the perception of, a comparison, 232 - Paracelsus, on new words, 232 - Partisans or opponents, how to address them, 231 - - Hope, the moon's halo an emblem of, 238 - - Humanity, the hope of, 137, 138 - - Humility, the lover's, 188 - - Hypothesis, of a new, 105 - - - I will lift up, etc., 101 - - Idea, the birth of, 109 - - Idealist, the, at bay, 277-279 - - "If a man could pass through paradise," 282 - - Ignore thyself, 301 - - Illusion (Mr. Dennison and the "bottle man"), 144-147 - - Imagination 'eisenoplasy,' 236 - - In a twinkling of an eye, 185-186 - - In wonder all philosophy began, 185 - - Incommunicable, the, 31 - - Infancy and infants, 3, 4 - - Infinite, the, and the finite, 81 - - _Inopem me copia fecit_, 189 - - Insects, 271 - _Spiders' webs in Java_, 271 - _Libellulidæ_, 271 - _Tipulidæ minimæ_, 271 - - Islamism, 287, 288 - - - "Kingdom of Heavenite," a, 273 - - Knave, a treacherous, 28 - - Knowledge, a royal road to, 298-300 - - Knowledge and Understanding, 173 - - - Landing places, 157 - - Law and gospel, 214 - - Liberty, the cap of, 203 - - Life, the idea of, 305 - - Light, the inward, 48 - - _Litera scripta manet_, 121 - - Love, 1-2 - Affected by jealousy, 1 - soother of misfortune, 2 - Disappointed, 2 - The transformer, 2 - - Love, 233-235 - - Love, the adolescence of, 68 - - Love, the divine essence, 133-134 - - Love and duty, 140-142 - - Love, the ineffable, 191-192 - - Love and music, 200-201 - - Lover, the humble complaint of, 190 - - Loves, of first, 153-154 - - _Lucus a non lucendo_, 200 - - - Magnitude, the sense of, 112-115 - - Maiden's primer, 195 - - Marriage, the ideal, 216 - - Mean, the danger of, 62 - - Means to ends, 107 - - Mediterranean, the, 100 - "A brisk gale and the foam," 100 - - Memorandum, a serious, 79 - - Metaphysic, a defence of, 42 - - Metaphysician, the, at bay, 106 - - Metaphysic, the aim of his, 42 - - Milton's blank verse, 253 - - Milton and Shakspere, 296-8 - - Mohammed, the flight of, 290-291 - - Moment, a, and a magic mirror, 245-246 - - Monition, the rage for, 68-70 - - Moonlight gleams and massy glories, 171 - - Moonset, a, 50 - - Morning, a gem of, 187 - - _Mot propre_, the passion for, 155 - - Mother wit, 226 - - Motion, the psychology of, 56-57 - - _Multum in parvo_, 85 - - - Name it and you break it, 198 - - Nature, the night side of, 45-47 - - _Ne quid nimis_, 89 - - _Nefas est ab hoste doceri_, 76 - - Neither bond nor free, 195 - - Neutral pronoun, a, 190 - - Night, in the visions of, 43, 44 - - Nightmare, the hag, 243-245 - - _Noscitur a sociis_, 32 - - Not the beautiful, etc., 49-50 - - - _Obductâ fronte senectus_, 272-273 - - _Observations and Reflections_, 17-21 - Ashes in autumn, 19 - Citizens eat, rustics drink, 19 - Definition hostile to images, 19 - First cause and source of the Nile, 20 - Love poems, a scheme of, 20 - Moon, the setting, 18 - My birthday, 19 - Northern Lights, Derwent's birthday, 18 - Shakspere and Naucratius, 21 - Soul the mummy, an emblem, 20 - Spring with cone of sand, 17 - Stability and Instability, the cause of, 19 - State, the eye of, 18 - Superiors and inferiors, 20 - Truths and feelings, 18 - Two moon-rainbows, 19 - - Of a too witty book, 280-281 - - Official distrust, 83 - - O star benign! 76 - - O thou whose fancies, etc., 15-16 - - Omniscient, the comforter, 127 - - One music as before, etc. 168 - - One, the, and the good, 63 - - One, the many and the, 77 - - Opera, the, 82 - - Orange blossom, 134-136 - - Over-blaming, the danger of, 198 - - - [Greek: PANTA RHEI], 183-184 - - _Pars altera mei_, 49 - - Partisans and renegades, 173-174 - - Past and present, 1 - - People, the spirit of a, 288-290 - - Petrarch's epistles, 262, 263 - - Phantoms of sublimity, 170 - - Philanthropy and self-advertisement, 249, 250 - - Philosophy the friend of poetry, 78 - - Pindar, 168 - - Places and persons, 70-74 - - Poet, a, on poetry, 294 - - Poet, the, and the spider, 32 - - Poetic licence, a plea for, 165-166 - - Poetry, 4 - Correction of, 4 - Dr. Darwin, 5 - Elder languages, the fitter for, 5 - Ode, definition of, 4 - - Poetry and prose, 229-230 - - Poets as critics of poets, 127-128 - - Populace and people, 174 - - Posterity, a caution to, 159 - - Practical man, a, 199-200 - - Praise, the meed of, 284 - - Presentiments, 256-257 - - Price, Dr., 167-168 - - Prophecy, the manufacture of, 192-193 - - Prudence _versus_ friendship, 291-293 - - Pseudo-poets, 156 - - Psychology in youth and maturity, 218 - - Public opinion and the services, 237 - - Purgatory, an intellectual, 152-153 - - - Rain, the maddening, 154 - - Recollection and remembrance, 57 - - Reimarus and the instinct of animals, 92-95 - - Religion, spiritual, 138, 218-219 - - _Remedium amoris_, 266 - - Richardson, 166-167 - - Righteousness, the sun of, 162 - - _Rugit leo_, 301-303 - - - Save me from my friends, 264-265 - - Science and philosophy, 261-262 - - Scholastic terms, a plea for, 274-275 - - Schoolman, a Unitarian, 58 - - Sea, the bright blue, 109 - - Self, the abstract, 120 - - Self-absorption and selfishness, 249 - - Self-esteem, excess of, 198, 199 - - Self-esteem, defect of, 199 - - Self-reproof, a measure in, 81-82 - - Sensations, the continuity of, 102, 103 - - Sentiment an antidote to casuistry, 124-125 - - Sentiment, morbid, 169-170 - - Sentiments below morals, 154 - - _Seriores Rosæ_, 274 - "Lie with the ear," 274 - "Like some spendthrift lord," 274 - "On the same man as in a vineyard," 274 - "The blossom gives not only," 274 - "We all look up," 274 - - Sermons, ancient and modern, 237-239 - - Seventeen hundred and sixty yards, etc., 280 - - Shakspere and Malone, 88 - - Subject and object, 294 - - Silence is golden, 259 - - Simile, a, 76 - - _Sine qua non_, 186 - - Sleepless, the feint of the, 251 - - Solace, external, his need of, 167 - - _Solvitur suspiciendo_, 187 - - Sonnet, an unwritten, 295 - - Soul, the embryonic, 104 - - Spinoza, a poem on spirit or on, 61 - - Spinoza, the ethics of, 57 - - Spiritual blindness, 270 - - Spiritualism and mysticism, 276-277 - - Spooks, 281 - - Spring, the breath of, 305 - - Square, the, the circle, the pyramid, 97 - - Star, to the evening, 247 - - Style of Milton, Smectymnuus, etc., 271 - - Subject and object, 294 - - Sundog, a, 97 - - Sunset, a, 52 - - Superstition, 143-144 - - Supposition, a, 138 - - Syracuse, 78 - - - Taste, an ethical quality, 165 - - Teleology and nature worship, 35 - - Temperament and morals, 33 - - That inward eye, etc., 246, 247 - - The body of this death, 276 - - The conclusion of the whole matter, 266 - - The greater damnation, 279 - - The mind's eye, 286 - - "The more exquisite," etc., 282 - - The night is at hand, 307 - - "The sunny mist," etc., 31 - - The tender mercies of the good, 208-209 - - "The tree or sea-weed like," etc., 31 - - Theism and Atheism, 285-286 - - _Things Visible and Invisible_, 7-14 - Anthropomorphism and the Trinity, 14 - Anti-optimism, 13 - Babe, its sole notion of cruelty, 13 - Cairns, J., on the Nazarites, 9 - Child scolding a flower, 10 - Children's words, analogous, 11 - Dandelions, beards of, note, 10 - Dyer, George, and poets' throttles, 9 - Fisherman, the idle, note, 10 - Friends' friends, reception by, note, 8 - Godwin, a definition of, 13 - Hartley's fire-place of stones, 13 - Hazlitt's theory of picture and palette, 9 - "Hot-headed men confuse," 11 - "How," the substratum of philosophy, 13 - Kingfishers' flight, 7 - "Little Daisy," etc., 7 - London and Nature, 8 - Luther, his prejudices, 11 - Comment, 11 - Materialists and mystery, 14 - Nightingale and frogs in Germany, note, 7 - Quotations, rage for, 9 - Reproaches and remorse, 12 - Sickbed and prison, 12 - "Slanting pillars of misty light," 9 - Space a perception of additional magnitude, 12 - Taylor, Jeremy, quotation from _Via Pacis_, 12 - "The thin scattered rain-clouds," 12 - Things perishable, thoughts imperishable, 8 - Thinking and perceiving, 12 - Time and likeness, 13 - Upturned leaves, 10 - - _Thoughts, a Crowd of_, 58-61 - Children and hard-skinned ass, 59 - Ghost of a mountain, 60 - Light as lovers love, 59 - Man, epitheton of, 58 - Palm, the, 61 - Place and time, 59 - Poets' bad and beautiful expressions, 59 - Public schools, advantage of, 60 - Rainbows stedfast in mist, 61 - Rosemary tree, a, 59 - Slang, religious, 60 - Sopha of sods, note, 60 - Stump of a tree, 61 - - Thought, a mortal agony of, 63 - - Thought and attention, 213-214 - - _Thoughts and Fancies_, 22-25 - Achilles and his heel, 25 - Devil at the very end of hell, 23 - Dimness and numbness, 23 - Friendship and comprehension, 24 - Green fields after the city, 25 - Happiness and paradise, 25 - Hartley and the "seems," 24 - Kind-hearted men refuse roughly, 23 - Limbo, 22 - Metaphysics, their effect on the thoughts, 23 - Nature for likeness, men for difference, 25 - Old world, the, and the new year, 22 - Opposite talents not incompatible, 24 - Poets and death, 22 - Poets, his rank among, 25 - Sounds and outness, 23 - Swift and Socinianism, 24 - Time as threefold, 22 - - Thought and things, 143 - - Thoughts-how like music at times! 139 - - Through doubt to faith, 85 - - Time an element of grief, 31 - - Time and eternity, 155 - - Time, real and imaginary, note, 241-243 - - _Transcripts from my velvet pocket-books_, 26-28 - Action, the meanness of, 27 - Barrow and the verbal imagination, 26 - Candle-snuffers not discoverers, 26 - Falling asleep, 27 - New play compared to toy ship, 27 - Plagiarist, a thief in the candle, 26 - Post, its influence, 26 - Quotation and conversation, 26 - Repose after agitation, 27 - Socinianism and methodism, 26 - Teme, the valley of, 26 - Universe, the federal republic of, 27 - Wedgwood, T., and thoughts and things, 27 - - Transubstantiation, 61-62 - - Truth, 191, 220 - - Truth, the danger of adapting, &c., 228 - - Truth, the fixed stars of, 257 - - Turtle-shell, a, for household tub, 207-208 - - - Unwin, Mrs., Cowper's lines to, 121-123 - - Unknown, the great, 284 - - - Vain Glory, 203-204 - - _Verbum sapientibus_, 102 - - _Ver, zer, and al_, 187 - - Vexation, a complex, 283 - - _Vox hiemalis_, 303-304 - - - We ask not whence, etc., 89 - - Wedgwood, T., and Reimarus, 91 - - What man has made of man, 264-265 - - Will, the undisciplined, 64-66 - - Windmill and its shadow, 77-78 - - Winter, a mild, 170 - - Woman's frowardness, 89 - - Words and things, 225 - - Words, creative power of, and images, 87 - - Words, the power of, 266-269 - - Wordsworth and _The Prelude_, 30 - - Wordsworth, John, 132 - - Worldly wise, 230 - - Wounded vanity, a salve for, 82-83 - - -Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. London & Edinburgh - - - * * * * * - -Transcriber's note - - -The following changes have been made to the text: - -Page ix: "ceasless" changed to ceaseless". - -Page 73: "wordliness" changed to "worldliness". - -Page 173: "PARTIZANS" changed to "PARTISANS". - -Page 218: "pyschologise" changed to "psychologise". - -Page 253: "strenghth" changed to "strength". - -Page 320: "lifelong" changed to "life-long". - -Page 320: "Caraccioli" changed to "Caracciolo". - -Page 323: "philososhy" changed to "philosophy". - -Page 324: "Partizans" changed to "Partisans". - -Page 327: "Righteousnesss" changed to "Righteousness". - -Page 330: "rainclouds" changed to "rain-clouds'. - -Page 330: "hardskinned" changed to "hard-skinned". - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Anima Poetæ, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANIMA POETÆ *** - -***** This file should be named 41705-8.txt or 41705-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/1/7/0/41705/ - -Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Carla Foust, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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